Free Republic

MEN with strong upper body strength are more likely to vote conservatively while physically weaker males have a greater tendency towards left-leaning views. And stronger men are more likely to protect their resources while weaker males favour more socialist views such as wealth distribution, researchers claim. Psychological scientists Michael Bang Petersen of Denmark’s Aarhus University, and Daniel Sznycer of the University of California, say political motivations may have evolutionary links to physical strength. The scientists say men's upper body strength predicts and influences their political opinions and this link reflects psychological traits that evolved in response to our early ancestral...

Men who are physically strong are more likely to take a right wing political stance, while weaker men are inclined to support the welfare state, according to a new study. Researchers discovered political motivations may have evolutionary links to physical strength. Men's upper-body strength predicts their political opinions on economic redistribution, according to the research. The principal investigators - psychological scientists Michael Bang Petersen, of Aarhus University in Denmark, and Daniel Sznycer, of the University of California in the U.S., believe that the link may reflect psychological traits that evolved in response to our early ancestral environments and continue to...

“I still remember Colonel Gibson, he said, ‘I have never been so embarrassed in my life that a State Department officer has bigger balls than somebody in the military.’ A nice compliment.” -- Greg Hicks, formerly the second-ranking U.S. diplomat in Libya, talking to congressional investigators about receiving word from a commander on the ground that Defense officials had refused a request to send troops to aid Americans besieged by Islamist militants. The biggest news this week about the 2016 presidential election is not New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s weight-loss surgery. Nor is it those on the right rallying against...

Former Rep. Todd Akin said he regrets the comments he made about “legitimate rape” which derailed his Missouri bid for U.S. Senate last year. In an interview with KDSK-TV on Thursday, the 65-year-old was asked whether he would take back the controversial comments. “Of course I would,” the former congressman replied. “I’ve relived them too many times. But that is not reality.” …

House Republicans have concluded that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was responsible for cutting security at the consulate in Benghazi ahead of last year’s attack there, and that the administration lied about why it downplayed terrorism as the cause of the assault. A new report — the result of months of investigation by five different House committees — says there was plenty of intelligence that presaged the attack, but the State Department and President Obama failed to heed the warnings or give the Defense Department the authority to respond to such an attack. The report exonerates the Pentagon itself,...

Researchers at the University of Cambridge say that, using publicly-available Facebook Likes only, it's possible to get surprisingly accurate estimates of users’ race, age, IQ, sexuality, personality, substance use and political views. "I am a great fan and active user of new amazing technologies, including Facebook. I appreciate automated book recommendations, or Facebook selecting the most relevant stories for my newsfeed," says said Michal Kosinski, Operations Director at Cambridge's Psychometric Centre. "However, I can imagine situations in which the same data and technology is used to predict political views or sexual orientation, posing threats to freedom or even life." The...

After four years of pretending there is no jihad against the free world, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blurted out the truth during her testimony on the Benghazi jihad massacre Wednesday: “We now face a spreading jihadist threat,” she said, adding: “We have to recognize this is a global movement.” We do? Yet the Obama administration has for years steadfastly and repeatedly denied both that there was a jihadist threat at all and that it was a global movement. So far has the Obama administration been from acknowledging that there was a jihad threat that less than two months into...

There aren’t more, because some people just don’t like to pay tolls, and others haven’t figured how they can take advantage of the lanes. Transurban is happy to have anybody’s toll money, whether they are locals or long-distance travelers, but the lanes are designed largely for the benefit of local travelers. The entrance and exit system reflects that. The Tysons area business and civic leaders with whom I’ve talked express optimism about the lanes and seem hopeful about the two new access points at Westpark Drive and Jones Branch Drive. At this early stage, the most vexing thing about the...

December 4, 2012 '2016' Oscar Snub Has Filmmakers Claiming Political Bias Paul Bond Gerald Molen, who produced the Academy Award-winning 'Schindler's List,' said the box-office success of the anti-Obama documentary proves the film was a hit: "The action confirms my opinion that the bias against anything from a conservative point of view is dead on arrival in Hollywood." ..Gerald Molen, the Oscar-winning producer of Schindler’s List, is claiming political bias because a documentary movie he produced this year isn't up for an Oscar, even though that film, 2016: Obama’s America, made more money at the box office than the combined...

In light of the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, restaurant companies and franchisees are looking into ways to lower costs to save money, including cutting employee hours. “What we’re seeing is that this health care law puts unique challenges on chain restaurants,” said Rob Green, executive director of the National Council of Chain Restaurants. “The law will have cost implications on a lot of different business sectors, but restaurants and retail are in the bull’s eye.” Specifically, two parts of the PPACA may raise costs for restaurant chains: The definition of full-time employees as those who...

...Are black people supporting Obama mainly because he's black? If race is just one factor in blacks' support of Obama, does that make them racist? Can blacks' support for Obama be compared with white voters who may favor his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, because he's white? ...Stacey Dash, who also has Mexican heritage, is best known for the 1995 film "Clueless" and the recent cable-TV drama "Single Ladies." On Twitter, she was called "jigaboo," "traitor," "house nigger" and worse after posting, "Vote for Romney. The only choice for your future." ...Twitter users are by no means representative of America, and...

They’re calling it the Michele Bachmann effect. And no, it’s not the Minnesota congresswoman’s crusade to ban falafel from public schools. It refers to the relationship between a woman’s politics and her face. Allison Yarrow hit the Highline to see if people could tell a difference between Democratic and Republican female politicians. Women politicians with “stereotypical feminine facial features” are more often Republicans, found researchers at UCLA]. And the more feminine their features, the more conservative their voting records. They also found the reverse—that women with more masculine facial features tended to be Democrats. Less gender-typical visages tracked with more...

Andy williams was not my favorite. But he was awesome. There was at least one song we did as a marching band in High school that was his. I'm sure there were a few movies he did the theme song to. I do not know what they were. You guys tell me.

An anti-Islam film that sparked violent protests in many countries had "nothing to do with" a deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi earlier this month, Libya's president told NBC News. In an exclusive interview with NBC News' Ann Curry, President Mohamed Magarief discounted claims that the attack was in response to a movie produced in California and available on YouTube. He noted that the assault happened on Sept. 11 and that the video had been available for months before that. "Reaction should have been, if it was genuine, should have been six months earlier. So it was postponed...

Teenagers who regularly smoke cannabis are putting themselves at risk of permanently damaging their intelligence, according to a landmark study.

Virus Transmits much more Easily Via Anal Intercourse, Research Shows New research pinpoints a major reason why gay and bisexual men remain so vulnerable to the AIDS epidemic: When it comes to the transmission of HIV, a man who has unprotected anal intercourse is at especially high risk. In fact, if that kind of intercourse was only as risky as vaginal intercourse, researchers report, HIV cases among gay and bisexual men would shrink dramatically. It would go down even more, they added, if their rates of casual sex declined. [. . . ] According to UNAIDS, HIV is more common...

At Big Journalism, William Bigelow writes, “According to a new Gallup poll measuring Americans’ confidence in television news, the level is the lowest since the poll was begun in 1993:” 21% of adults expressed a great deal of confidence in television news reporting. No wonder CNN’s ratings are in the toilet. Gallup tested 16 institutions, including newspapers, and TV news ranked 11th. Newspapers were ranked 10th. There was an interesting divide among those on the left; Democrats were the most confident in television news of all the groups surveyed (now there’s a shock) but postgraduates, who are more generally Democrats,...

In light of President Obama’s exhortation to hike taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year earlier today, here’s a well-timed piece of evidence demonstrating what happens when you decide you’d rather engage in populist persecution and punish the wealthy for their economic contributions rather than make tough budget-cutting decisions. A new report indicates that the state of Maryland is bleeding residents and tax revenue — an emigration likely due to the wildly blue state’s recent tax hikes. "The study, by the anti-tax group Change Maryland, says that a net 31,000 residents left the state between 2007 and 2010,...

In light of President Obama's exhortation to hike taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year earlier today, here's a well-timed piece of evidence demonstrating what happens when you decide you'd rather engage in populist persecution and punish the wealthy for their economic contributions rather than make tough budget-cutting decisions. A new report indicates that the state of Maryland is bleeding residents and tax revenue — an emigration likely due to the wildly blue state's recent tax hikes. The study, by the anti-tax group Change Maryland, says that a net 31,000 residents left the state between 2007 and 2010,...

In his new Social Science Journal study...Mark Regnerus set out to answer the question of whether children who have parents in a same-sex relationship experience disadvantages when compared with children raised by their biological, married parents. The answer, contra the zeitgeist, appears to be a resounding yes. Children with a parent in a same-sex relationship “underperform” in almost every category. Some of these differences may be relatively benign — whether one voted in the last presidential election, for example — but most are decidedly not. One deficit is particularly worrying: Less than 2 percent of children from intact, biological families...

Study: Children Fare Better In Traditional Mom-Dad Families By Cheryl Wetzstein- June 10, 2012 Two studies released Sunday may act like brakes on popular social-science assertions that gay parents are the same as — or maybe better than — married, mother-father parents. “The empirical claim that no notable differences exist must go,” Mark Regnerus, a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said in his study in Social Science Research. Using a new, “gold standard” data set of nearly 3,000 randomly selected American young adults, Mr. Regnerus looked at their lives on 40 measures of social, emotional and...

The Australian Medical Association has distanced itself from a statement made by a group of doctors who say heterosexual marriage is better for children. Around 150 medical practitioners from the group Doctors For The Family have signed a submission to the Senate inquiry into marriage equality opposing same-sex marriage. The group says it believes heterosexual marriage is healthier for children. Doctors for the Family's convener Lachlan Dunjey has told ABC News Radio the group is concerned about the health consequences for children of gay marriages. "It's well proven that children who grow up with a mother and a father in...

"Exploring Your Destiny" Sunday Service Webcast w/ Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson. Topic: How most women are building a shameless society. What do you think?

A new survey of Fortune 100 companies finds that the health care overhaul, contrary to the claims of its authors, created some perverse incentives for employers to drop workers from company insurance plans. Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee surveyed the top 100 companies about how much they spent on health care -- a total of 71, covering 5.9 million employees, responded. The results suggested it would be far more attractive for companies to drop workers from those plans than keep them.

Politico Co-Founder: Most Journalists I've Known Are Democrats By Matthew Sheffield Created 04/23/2012 - 12:33pm In one of the more honest admissions of the obvious, Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei admitted earlier this month that the majority of the journalists that he's known in his career at a variety of publications "vote Democratic." "If I had to guess, if you put all of the reporters that I’ve ever worked with on truth serum, most of them vote Democratic," VandeHei said during the March 14th edition of C-SPAN's "Road to the White House" program. Video follows. Thanks to the Washington Free Beacon...

When George Zimmerman’s lawyer, Orlando-based criminal defense attorney Craig Sonner, defended his client to TIME on Sunday night, he would not say whether he is gathering evidence for a trial. But he hints he is thinking ahead to a criminal case. “I err on the side of preparedness,” he says. “Every time I take a case I prepare as though I am going to trial.” Sonner continues to remain mum on the specifics of the incident, like why police surveillance cameras showed Zimmerman with no apparent blood and grass stains soon after the shooting, or whether or not he has...

A new report by the University of Illinois at Chicago concludes, based on conviction rates since the 1970s, Chicago is America's most corrupt city and Illinois its third most corrupt state. Among our initial reaction: Another taxpayer-funded study belabors the obvious. "What has come to be called 'The Chicago Way' or 'The Illinois Way' of public corruption has undermined ... voters' sense of political efficacy," the authors wrote. "Why report corrupt officials if you know they won't be punished and they may turn the powers of the government on you?" A good question. But the fear of reprisal finishes a...

Barack Obama has spent the last several months insisting on a tax hike for higher income earners in the US, casting it as an issue of “fairness� and of deficit reduction. In his State of the Union speech, Obama used the word “fair� or a derivative nine different times, and calling for the wealthy to pay their “fair share� of taxes — even though the wealthy account for a much higher percentage of income-tax revenues both as a share of the revenues and as a share of income than the rest of the population. Democrats have tried to push through...

A new report published by the World Bank has come to a spellbinding conclusion: High government spending and large public sectors substantially diminish economic growth. In fact, a slew of establishment economists and organizations have come to a similar conclusion. Daniel J. Mitchell (left), senior fellow at the Cato Institute, explained in a recent article that the era of socialism is over, and the field of economics is migrating toward a more laissez-faire ideology, where governmental authority is weakened and economies become more privatized. In chapter seven of the World Bank’s lengthy report, which chronicles the economies and governments of...

California's combination of business, sales, income and other taxes ranks it close to the bottom of the 50 states for being business-friendly, according to an index put out by a conservative Washington think tank. California placed 48th, ahead of only New York at 49th place and New Jersey at 50th, said a report released Wednesday by the Tax Foundation. According to the foundation, the top 10 states with business-friendly taxes were Wyoming, South Dakota, Nevada, Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, Washington, Montana, Texas and Utah, the report said.

If America's top hockey mom decides to make an endorsement in the Republican presidential primary, it doesn't sound like Mitt Romney will win that sweepstakes. (As Katie notes below, Palin's husband has decided to back Newt). Via Fox News: Her logic is certainly worth considering. The Democrat/MSM playbook against Romney isn't an especially well kept secret. Cast him as an out of touch, greedy one-percenter who "likes being able to fire people." That would be the formula: craven blame shift and nuclear class warfare. If Republican voters believe that dual strategy will eclipse Obama's woeful record as president -- and...

...The trouble for Gingrich is that Cain isn’t doing what Perry is and hanging on. Cain maintained his Real Clear Politics Average high-point of 26 percent, essentially tied with Mitt Romney, for only two weeks. And he may go front frontrunner to hash mark in less than a month. Gingrich would have been better off if Cain’s candidacy would have slowly withered. Gingrich wants to be in a two-way race with Romney and to have only to appear more conservative and more consistent than Romney. Gingrich might survive daily releases of new skeletons from his past...[snip]....But only if juxtaposed as...

At a town hall meeting at the Institute of Politics at New Hampshire’s Saint Anselm’s College Tuesday, Rick Perry asked that all of the college students in the crowd who will be 21 by Nov. 12 support his bid for the presidency. Say what? The voting age in the United States is, of course, 18. And the 2012 election will be held on Nov. 6, 2012. (The New Hampshire Republican primary, which brought Perry to the state, will take place on Jan. 10). “Those who are going to be over 21 on November 12th, I ask for your support,” Perry...

Here’s the latest on who makes what from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (whose workers, we’ll point out here, happen to be public employees): Workers in the private sector made an average of $28.13 per hour in total compensation in June (wages contributed $19.81 to that, and benefits added $8.32)While state and local government workers made an average of $40.40 per hour (wages were $26.41, and benefits, $13.99). Of course, the amount one earns is a function of the skills and education one possesses. Our colleague Jan Norman tells you a bit more about the breakdown by job type here.It is often argued that many state and local government workers...

After wasting three years and more than a trillion dollars of "stimulus" money, the President has announced he has a new plan for creating jobs. The problem is: Government doesn't create jobs that add value to the economy; companies and entrepreneurs do. Through taxes, mandates and regulation the government typically discourages hiring and destroys jobs. What Washington should do right now is step aside. To show how serious he is, the President has enlisted noted labor economist Alan Krueger of Princeton University to head the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Unfortunately, one thing Krueger is known for is his...

People do stupid things all the time and they do them in all geographic regions, but as any regular viewer of Comedy Central’s "Tosh 2.0" can tell you, there does seem to be an uncanny correlation between certain regions of the country and the kind of risk-taking behavior that could get you seriously hurt or even killed. That’s the premise of a new study out today in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. The three authors, all from the University of Oklahoma, found that states with a “culture of honor” –- in the South, and the West, mainly --...

President Obama took to the podium today to talk to Americans about the White House’s initiatives to help veterans get back into the work force and what the government is doing to encourage a health economy. But before he dove into the details, the President stood at his podium for a good minute or so in silence, interrupting only to let the audience know that he was “just waiting, here.” The President didn’t quite specify what he was waiting for as he stared out into the audience for the minute, though a number of things could have been delaying his...

[snip] "In addition, the incidence for schizophrenia is almost doubled for individuals who are born and brought up in cities. "These values are a cause for concern and determining the biology behind this is the first step to remedy the trend." He and colleagues studied a series of brain scans from healthy volunteers from rural and urban areas to reach their conclusion. Dr Pruessner said: "These findings suggest that different brain regions are sensitive to the experience of city living during different times across the lifespan. "Future studies need to clarify the link between psychopathology and these affects in individuals...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I read today a piece written by a friend of mine named Michael Ledeen. I've quoted Michael Ledeen on this program before. He's a noted scholar and think tank thinker, and he's done a lot of thinking for a lot of different think tanks. He's been associated with I think Heritage and a number of them. Now, what he's primarily known for in recent years has been championing the cause of the Iranian people against the oppression that they face each and every day. He's always been a staunch supporter of the United States military, keen observer,...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.- A Florida judge says red light tickets issued by police officers are unconstitutional because they impose more severe penalties than red light camera citations. Broward County Judge Fred Berman noted last week police write tickets for $260 when they observe a motorist blowing through a red light while $158 citations are issued to motorists caught by the red light cameras, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Friday. Berman said the police-issued tickets, which also impose points on driver's licenses, violate equal protection provisions in the U.S. and Florida constitutions. The ruling eliminated a ticket issued to a motorist...

California's attempts to switch to green energy have inadvertently put the survival of the state’s golden eagles at risk. Scores of the protected birds have been dying each year after colliding with the blades of about 5,000 wind turbines. Now the drive for renewable power sources, such as wind and the sun, being promoted by President Obama and state Governor Jerry Brown has raised fears that the number of newborn golden eagles may not be able to keep pace with the number of turbine fatalities. The death count along the ridgelines of the Bay Area’s Altamount Pass Wind Resource Area...

For the seventh year in a row, a survey of chief executives has ranked California as the nation's worst state in which to do business. More than 500 U.S. CEOs polled by Greenwich, Conn.-based Chief Executive magazine based their opinions on numerous factors, including regulations, tax policies, work force quality, education resources, quality of living and infrastructure.

A Government Accountability Office report to be released on Tuesday concludes the federal government "could potentially save billions of taxpayer dollars annually" by "reducing or eliminating duplication, overlap, or fragmentation" in federal government programs. The report was mandated by a provision included by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., in a bill passed last year raising the federal debt ceiling. And Coburn said on Monday evening that the findings bolster his long-standing attempts to consolidate or eliminate duplicative programs. "It makes us all look like jackasses," Coburn told reporters, arguing both the legislative and executive branches can barely track federal programs. "Anybody...

The United Nations nuclear watchdog has received new information regarding allegations of possible military aspects to Iran's disputed nuclear program, the agency said in a report. The confidential report, obtained by Reuters on Friday, listed several areas of questions the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has about Iran's atomic activities and called on Tehran to cooperate with its investigation.

...and he filled tanks feeding the boat’s 200 horsepower Mercury engine with gas that had been blended with 10 percent ethanol. “I heard a station in Greenville had straight gas, but I just took it to the next one I could find. Within 10 minutes, my engine started failing,” Gray said. “(The ethanol) had crystallized and crumbled and had clogged my fuel line, and I had to tear out all of the fuel system.” Gray saved hundreds of dollars by repairing it himself, but his troubles with the motor are nothing new to marine shop owners, lawn mower mechanics and...

So, what was really up with the televised feed of Rep. Bachmann's State of the Union response? Our sources tell us that CNN had originally agreed to use the live feed set up by Tea Party Express, which had a teleprompter running on the lens in which Rep. Bachmann was delivering her speech. But, when Rep. Bachmann left the camera set-up and sat in the House chamber to hear Pres. Obama's speech, CNN set up a camera of their own, just off to the side of the main, tele-prompter/camera. Thus, when CNN provided their network feed it ended up skewed...

Longtime readers of WUWT may remember this story from 2008:Nutty Story of the Day: “Global Warming” is Killing the Penguins in AntarcticaThe root of this goes back as far as 2006, such as this MSNBC story:click image for the story at MSNBC.com Now it appears that assertion of a link between global warming and penguin deaths is dying  faster than the penguins themselves. In what appears to be a manifestation of the observer effect problem in science (the act of observing changes the outcome) we have this article from the science journal Nature that says the act of tagging penguins so...

Terry and Linda Jamison, the Psychic Twins and author of "Psychic Intelligence", who correctly predicted the events of September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, are predicting more events for 2011. In "Wings of Love Radio" recorded on November 20, 2010, the Psychic Twins predicted that Barrack Obama will be a one term president and that he will not be re-elected. Policies of President Obama will be challenged and he will have a difficult time pushing his agenda through. Do not underestimate the power of Sarah Palin, and that more women will come into power in politics and the corporate...

I did a search at Google today for “cars� and was shocked. Rather than list links allowing me to search for “cars� on Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Voila, Naver and Yandex, Google instead favored its own search results. I’m glad the EU will be investigating whether this favoritism violates anti-trust laws. Consider the evidence. Here’s a search on Google for cars:As you can clearly see, none of the competing search engines I’ve named are listed in the top results. Rather than show them, Google instead shows pages about cars that it has collected across the web using its own technology.Google’s behavior...

10% unemployment = 50% top tax rate corporate = 85% individual top tax rate for more than $250k/year 4% unemployment = 20% top tax rate corporate = 25% individual top tax rate for more than $250k/year 1% unemployment = 0% top tax rate corporate = 10% individual top tax rate for more than $250k/year