Free Republic

Ah, Thanksgiving. The word conjures up images of turkey dinner, pumpkin pie, and watching football with family and friends. It kicks off the holiday season and is the biggest shopping period of the year. Children are taught that Thanksgiving came about when Pilgrims gave thanks to God for a bountiful harvest. It seems we vaguely mumble thanks for the food on our table, the roof over our head, and how lucky we are in spite of these hard economic times. After all, our lives are so much better than, say, those in Bangladesh. But surely there is something more to...

Note: The following text is a quote: Home • Briefing Room • Presidential Actions • Executive Orders The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release November 23, 2009 Executive Order-- Reducing Improper Payments and Eliminating Waste in Federal Programs EXECUTIVE ORDER By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in the interest of reducing payment errors and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in Federal programs, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Purpose. When the Federal Government makes payments to individuals and businesses...

Police: Indiana Father Goes to Strip Club, Leaves Kid in Car November 25, 2009 INDIANAPOLIS — A Franklin man was arrested after police say he left his 5-year-old son in a tractor-trailer while he ducked into an Indianapolis strip club to drink. The 39-year-old was arrested at 1:15 a.m. Tuesday on child neglect and public intoxication charges after calling police to report his truck stolen and his child missing. Police say the man was too drunk to remember where he had parked. They found the boy inside watching cartoons on a television inside the cab. The keys were in the...

Archaeologists warn that the Taliban are destroying Pakistan's ancient Gandhara heritage and rich Buddhist legacy as pilgrimage and foreign research dries up in the country's northwest. "Militants are the enemies of culture," said Abdul Nasir Khan, curator of Taxila Museum, one of the premier archeological collections in Pakistan. "It is very clear that if the situation carries on like this, it will destroy our culture and will destroy our cultural heritage," he told AFP. Taxila, a small town around 20 kilometres south of Islamabad, is one of Pakistan's foremost archeological attractions given its history as a centre of Buddhist learning...

A new dinosaur found in South Africa has given scientists a glimpse into the evolution of sauropods, the biggest animals ever to have walked the Earth, a new study says. The newfound, 20-foot-long (7-meter-long) dinosaur species is a close cousin to the common ancestor of all sauropods -- gigantic, four-legged, long-necked, big-bellied plant-eaters. Dubbed Aardonyx celestae, the 195-million-year-old dinosaur had a lot of sauropod-like features, such as a robust skeleton for holding up its heft. (See extreme dinosaur pictures.) Unlike sauropods, though, the newfound species walked on two legs and only dropped down on all fours, the new research shows....

The discovery could offer clues in the search for life on Mars and beyond, researchers said in October at a meeting of the Geological Society of America... The microbes were found on the walls of lava tubes in Hawaii, New Mexico, and the Portuguese Azores islands, a volcanic archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean... The finds include "a lovely blue-green ooze dripping out of the [cave] ceiling in Hawaii; a vein of what looks like a gold, crunchy mineral in New Mexico; and, in the Azores, amazing pink hexagons," said Diana Northup, a geomicrobiologist at the University of New Mexico... Lava...

Brisbane may be 2000 years and half-a-world away from Pompeii, but it hasn't stopped a UQ archaeologist from digging up some hidden treasures. Dr Andy Fairbairn, a senior lecturer in archaeology with UQ's School of Social Science, is working on a project looking at the life inside one of the world's most famous dig sites... He does this by collecting samples from what would have been the toilets of the day to see the types of food were eaten... He said his team of volunteer archaeology students patiently go through hundreds of bags of samples collected in Pompeii, looking for...

An engineer peers at damaged magnets inside the Large Hadron Collider on December 11, 2008 -- almost a month after an electrical glitch stopped the first attempt at sending a beam of protons around the world's largest particle accelerator. After more than a year of repairs, physicists now have both beams of protons stable and circulating though the collider's main ring, LHC managers announced on November 23, 2009. Photograph courtesy Maximilien Brice, CERN

Currently under federal law and lots of states laws a misdemeanor 4 degree assault-domestic violence bars you from life from legally possessing a fire arm. my main question: This one size fits all approach takes away a god given right and a right protected under our Constitution from countless people who have made one simple mistake.is this right or wrong...shouldn't the law be more flexible...read on....

November 18, 2009 Marine Corps News|by Sgt. Randall A. Clinton NEW YORK — The oldest living female Marine died on Veterans Day and was buried in the Cypress Hills National Cemetery. Miriam Cohen was one of the oldest females to enlist in 1943, at 35 years old, said Debra Allee, the 101-year-old's niece. Cohen answered her nations calling twice, serving during World War II and the Korean War. Cohen, a graduate of the Girls High School in Brooklyn (since renamed to Boys & Girls High School), moved to Tuscan, Ariz., when she was 92.

Washington (CNN) -- Two people without invitations crashed President Obama's first White House state dinner, the U.S. Secret Service said Wednesday. The Secret Service confirmed a Washington Post report that the couple who crashed Tuesday night's dinner were Tareq and Michaele Salahi. The Post described the couple as polo-playing socialites from northern Virginia. A Secret Service checkpoint "did not follow proper procedures" to determine if the two were on the guest list for the dinner, said Edwin M. Donovan, a Secret Service special agent, in a statement.

For years, storms along the Alabama coast have often exposed the wreckage of a sailing ship that locals suspected was a Civil War blockade runner or a Prohibition-era rum runner or various vessels in between. When Tropical Storm Ida struck Nov. 10, the charred wooden hull reappeared on the beach six miles east of Fort Morgan in Baldwin County. The wreck is most likely to be the three-masted schooner Rachel, which ran aground on the peninsula in the first half of the 1900s, according to Mike Bailey, Fort Morgan events coordinator... The Rachel was built by John DeAngelo in Moss...

Placer County sheriff's deputies have arrested a Lincoln landfill employee on suspicion of embezzlement by Placer County Sheriff's deputies.

The 13-year-old son of John and Tara Farrell and a 12-year-old friend were walking in Brooklyn Park one August night when a Cadillac Escalade sped up and the driver ordered them inside. The man drove to his nearby house, sat the frightened boys on a curb and slapped handcuffs on them. Only then did they learn that they had been placed under citizen's arrest by off-duty Minneapolis police officer Tony Adams, whose doorbell had been rung earlier by someone who fled and who had heard from neighbors that teens might be breaking into vehicles in the area. The Farrells, who...

We will talk about Obama's non-plans for Afghanistan and his wish to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Ten Rivalries to Witness College football passion covers the width and breadth of the many social, economic, racial, regional and religious subcultures in America. From Boston Brahmins (Harvard) to Hollywood fashion (USC), from Southern tradition (Alabama) to California progressives (Stanford), from Catholics (Notre Dame) to Mormons (BYU) to hippies (Cal), everyone has a team to cheer for. Below are 10 games that highlight that spectrum of passion, pageantry and pride (listed in approximate order of occurance during the season): Texas vs Oklahoma: The Longhorns, the Sooners and the Texas State Fair recall how so much of our culture is derived...

Indianapolis -- Former Indiana Pacers star Ron Artest and his sister are at the center of a welfare fraud investigation. Police and housing authorities raided the home Latoya Holmes-Ivey and her three children rent at 336 E. Burgess Ave. Wednesday morning, 6News' Rafael Sanchez reported. Holmes-Ivey was receiving taxpayer-supported rent assistance because she claimed she had no income, but investigators said she may have been getting money from her brother. The tip came from a former CPA at Tennessee-based TriStar Sports and Entertainment, the company that represents Artest, who now plays for the Los Angeles Lakers. According to court documents,...

Enjoy FReepers who have access to Hulu.

Honda FCX Clarity Review [Pic in URL] The new Honda FCX Clarity is the world's first commercially available fuel-cell vehicle that has reached Europe – although you can't buy one yet. The FCX Clarity wafts like the best Rolls-Royce and is just as quiet "It's all the hype over battery electric that drives me mad," says Thomas Brachmann, senior engineer with Honda. "If nature is half as clever as it's supposed to be, how is it that the sun uses hydrogen as an energy carrier and not a battery?" It's an interesting point, that natural selection favours the universe's most...

I checked my program guide and saw that The Fox Report tonight states that it stars Julie Banderas.It also says " New,A fast-paced newscast that recaps the day's stories and events." Tomorrow's guide shows 3 P.M.--Studio B with Shepard Smith but Julie again at 7 P.M. does anyone know if Shepard is finished at 7?

AWESOME VIDEO. IT SAYS IT TOOK THEM OVER 13,000 HOURS TO MAKE THIS. WORKING EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR 8 HOURS A DAY WOULD BE 4 YEARS 5 MONTHS AND 18 DAYS! WOW. AND THATS INCLUDING WEEKENDS! READ DESCRIPTION BELOW! Turn your sound on for this. Read this first, then watch. This is almost unbelievable. See how all of the balls wind up in catcher cones. This incredible machine was built as a collaborative effort between the Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of Engineering at the University of Iowa .. Amazingly, 97% of the machines components...

Well, here is how to cover the war: The Democrats claim that health care reform pays for itself by more people having insurance, thus more have access to preventative medicine. In turn, billions of would-be health expenses that the nation has now due to an uninsured population, would vanish in coming years. Using this thinking, Afghanistan pays for itself. How? By crushing the Taliban and the terrorists, the United States will prevent a lot of instability in the region and terror attacks worldwide, thus sparing the Treasury billions in future war costs, in addition to the fact the in times...

Michael Savage - Global Warming Frauds are Attacking our Liberties, Stop Obama Now From Signing Copenhagen Treaty and Pursuing Cap and Trade!!!! — (Sound Clip From Tuesday, November 24, 2009)

A gang member faces two life terms in prison after being convicted of a home invasion robbery during which he pistol-whipped a grandmother, her daughter and her granddaughter with a firearm, prosecutors said today. Carlos Alberto Martinez, 26, Santa Ana, entered the Santa Ana home by using a key that had been stolen from underneath the home's front door mat, prosecutors said. Wearing ski masks and armed with firearms, Martinez and an unidentified accomplice went into the home around 5:45 a.m. Dec. 18, 2007 and attacked a 78-year-old grandmother and her 54-year-old daughter, prosecutors said. They duct taped the...

Water-on-moon discovery doesn't align with 'trends' Tuesday, November 24, 2009 3:18 AM By JOE BLUNDO A few days have passed since we learned that the moon has water, but I'm still not over it. Water on the moon! It's astounding, isn't it? At least a little? I checked Google Trends for Nov. 13, the day NASA made the announcement. "Water on the moon" finished 10th -- behind search terms such as "Tony Alamo," "Tia Mowery wedding pictures" and "Wal-Mart Black Friday." The next day, the topic didn't make the list. Granted, Google Trends -- a daily look at the most...

Got to Valley View Mall at 8:30pm (our drive was about 90 min). Before eating dinner with family at Abuelo's Mexican, decided to swing by the Barnes and Noble. Asked my wife if she thought there'd be a line (the signing was next morning at 10am) -- she said "no way". She was surprised (she's a big Palin fan, but gets her news through me as English is not her first language) -- well there was of course a line of chairs and tents that was already very long. It made our dinner at Abuelo's more hurried than we planned....

The heaviest rain to hit Islam's annual hajj pilgrimage in years soaked the faithful and flooded the road to Mecca, snarling traffic as millions of Muslims headed for the holy sites. The downpours add an extra hazard on top of intense concerns about the spread of swine flu. Pilgrims in white robes holding umbrellas, some wearing face masks for fear of the flu, circled the black cube-shaped Kaaba in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca, the opening rite for the hajj. But the shrine — Islam's holiest site — and the nearby rain-soaked streets did not see the usual massive,...

Obama must really be a narcicist!

RICHLAND, Wash. — Sarah Palin is taking a Thanksgiving break from her book tour to spend time with family members in Washington for a 5K run to benefit the Red Cross. Palin detailed her plans Wednesday on Twitter. Heather Filbin with the Benton-Franklin Chapter of the American Red Cross said about 25 Palin relatives had registered for the annual Turkey Trot at Kennewick's Columbia Park. Palin plans to have dinner at the home of her aunt Katie Johnson.

I know I need a birth certificate...what else? I am seriously looking at leaving the USA until it becomes a place that embraces liberty, capitalism, and freedom.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to start a dialogue with his countrymen about their national identity, a subject that would not have raised eyebrows 50 years ago but has engendered a fierce political debate today. Martine Aubry, leader of the opposition Socialist party, contends Sarkozy is just playing electoral politics by appealing to his conservative base in advance of next year's regional elections. But Sarkozy showed he is serious during a 45-minute speech on Thursday that Elysee Palace had billed as being dedicated solely to farm subsidies and related issues. What's more, he demonstrated that he is willing to wage...

The USGovt executive branch, the UDept Treasury ministry, and the USFed central bank are all desperate. The USEconomy has deteriorated to a great extent, and will degrade more. The incoming revenues to the USGovt are way down, another contradiction to recovery claims. Credit growth has gone into reverse. Foreign dependence for credit supply has turned acute. The federal debt limit is soon to be breached. The Obama Admin seems on a mission to force a USTreasury debt explosion and default.

The Obama White House is addicted to the “unprecedented.” Perhaps it was a sign when President Barack Obama sat down in January to record his first weekly address and announced: “We begin this year and this administration in the midst of an unprecedented crisis that calls for unprecedented action." What has followed is declaration after declaration of “unprecedented” milestones. Some of them are legitimate firsts, like the president’s online town hall at the White House in May. But others the president wins merely on a technicality, and several clearly already have precedents. The White House’s announcement of its unprecedented —...

A Hayward man was shot and killed in front of his 13-year-old daughter while walking the family's dogs Tuesday evening, the result of a dispute with another man who took exception to one of the dogs sniffing at his leg, police said today.

The screw at the end shows it all!

Attention Tea Party. America Needs Your Help Congressional Lottery Pool America Will Thank You

Whether you like history or not... These are pretty amazing considering they were taken up to 145 years ago: A compendium of photos from the Civil War era. Truly fortunate that so many of these have survived. Probably a million wet plate photos were made during the civil war on glass plate. Popular during the war, they lost their appeal afterwards and so many were sold for the glass.

Windows 7 passes Mac OS X in market share race Weekend numbers for new OS bigger than for all versions of Mac OS X, says Net Applications Windows 7 passed the 5% market share milestone last weekend, which put it, if only temporarily, above the total market share of all versions of Apple's Mac OS X, a Web measurement firm said today.Last Saturday and Sunday, Windows 7 powered an estimated 5% and 5.14% of all computers that were online those days, according to Internet metrics vendor Net Applications. The two-day average of 5.07% was higher than the 5% of the...

Nov. 25, 2009 TURKEY TROT: Palin scheduled to run in Kennewick race By Kristi Pihl, Herald staff writer Kennewick Sarah Palin and her family are registered for the Benton-Franklin Chapter of the Red Cross’ Turkey Trot, which begins 7:30 a.m. tomorrow. The Red Cross has not hired security for the race, but has informed the Kennewick Police Department that Palin may be attending, said Jeanne Jelke, executive director of the Benton-Franklin Chapter of the Red Cross. The event features a one-mile fun run/walk and a 5K run in Columbia Park in Kennewick. About 3,000 people are expected, she said. Registration...

Yesterday we came across this amazing YouTube video of a Good Morning America segment profiling Kathy Spencer, who runs How to Shop for Free. By using a few techniques highlighted in the video, she manages to feed her family of six for less money than you probably have in your sofa cushions right now. Here at Unclutterer, we were wondering how much of Kathy Spencer’s shopping involves buying unneeded items just because of the savings, so we did a little digging and found this an eHow article by Spencer in which she addresses that particular issue: People always say why...

"The 2009 design depicts four faces representing the diversity of our Nation, with the clothing and hair weaving together symbolizing the principle, To Form a More Perfect Union."

George Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and...

It might not be the smartest way of giving a zero-weeks notice at work, but you've gotta give this guy some credit for doing extra work and making a custom Mac OS X app just for the purpose of quitting. Supposedly the pop up prompt (which apparently doesn't do anything) was seen by the fellow's coworker who explained the situation: He believed he was in a temp-to-hire position, and after three months of extra hours and butt-kissing, turns out it's just a temp position. He was a good worker too. I'd have recommended him. Too bad he burned his...

A man was just moments away from death as he hung in the jaws of a bear he tried to have a picnic with in a Swiss zoo. But in the end it was the bear who ended up fighting for his life after police shot it in order to save the life of the uninvited intruder into his enclosure. These dramatic photographs were taken by a visitor to the Bern Park, Switzerland, on Sunday when Finn, a European brown bear aged four, suddenly realised the unwanted human guest in his home. The 25-year-old man's bid to party with Finn...

President Obama said Tuesday that he was determined to “finish the job” in Afghanistan, and his aides signaled to allies that he would send as many as 25,000 to 30,000 additional American troops there even as they cautioned that the final number remained in flux. Obama had completed his consultations with his war council and would formally announce his decision in a national address at 8 p.m. Tuesday from the United States Military Academy at West Point. ... “After eight years — some of those years in which we did not have, I think, either the resources or the strategy...

Russian Bride's Revealing Wedding Dress Is Web Sensation A bride’s startlingly revealing wedding dress has become an internet sensation. [Check URL] By Tom Chivers 25 Nov 2009 The bride wore...not a lot. Originally posted on Wedinator a site dedicated to showcasing wedding photo disasters from around the world, the image has now been reposted on hundreds of blogs across the web. The unnamed woman, believed to be Russian, is shown getting out of a limousine wearing a white dress, the top half of which consists of two small, strategically positioned semicircles over a dramatic embonpoint. Predictably the internet’s fashion commentators...

My friend's son has a paper he is working on regarding new cell technology, especially in the workplace. Please share your stories, ideas, opinions here. In addition if you work in corporate America, what smartphones are supported in your environment? All ideas, advice, guidance, links, reviews, etc are most welcome!

I found this list and thought it was something that we could be thankful for, on this day before Thanksgiving. Thankful that there are celebrities who are opposed to Polanski being above the law, and who think that he should be prosecuted.

"Going Khmer Rouge", a new manifesto ‘written’ by Barack Hussein Obama Barry Soetoro Dunham Jr., with foreword by William Ayers. Coming soon to bookstores, school libraries, mandatory reading lists, marriage licenses, IRS tax forms, deed recordations, Census questionnaires, drivers’ education exams, and ACORN employee manuals near you...or else!