Free Republic

Earlier this week, USDA secretary Tom Vilsack met in Washington with representatives from the British government. Atop the list of issues UK environment secretary Owen Paterson was to bring up in his meeting with Vilsack is the continuing US ban on the sale of authentic Scottish haggis. Haggis, Scotland’s national dish, has been unavailable in the United States since 1971, when the USDA issued a succinct rule: “Livestock lungs shall not be saved for use as human food.” But sheep lungs are a key ingredient in haggis. The reasoning behind the USDA’s ban on lungs is generally couched in terms...

Gabrielle Reece, the pro volleyball player married to surfer Laird Hamilton, recently caused a stir by writing, “to truly be feminine means being soft, receptive . . . submissive” and she isn’t backing down. SNIP she stuck to her guns in Beach magazine: “In my experience, being a strong woman, but being with an ­alpha-type male, I found an easier flow when I assumed a more feminine role inside the home. Which doesn’t mean a doormat.” SNIP

A succulent red seaweed has been created that is packed full of protein, but unlike any other 'superfood' proclaimed as the world's next culinary saviour, you might actually want to eat this one. And that's because it tastes just like bacon. The new strain of dulse is a variation of a seaweed that grows in the wild along Pacific and Atlantic coastlines and is sold in dried form as a nutritional supplement. Researcher Chris Langdon and colleagues at Oregon State University's (OSU) Hatfield Marine Science Center patented the new strain of seaweed after working on for the past 15 years....

<p>Vogue’s Andre Leon Talley is giving Caitlyn Jenner‘s “privileged,” “white woman” style his stamp of approval.</p> <p>“I think she looks fabulous,” Talley, 65, told Andy Cohen on “Watch What Happens Live” on Sunday night. “I thought she was fabulous on the Vanity Fair cover and I think she looks like a perfect, wealthy, affluent white woman who’s privileged and that’s important and she comes from that kind of background.”</p>

JillStanek.com) A friend on the Hill emailed me yesterday afternoon, “Members are lined up on the House floor taking their names off of the coin bill. This is VERY unusual.” Indeed, as apparent fallout to the firestorm created yesterday by a video released by The Center for Medical Progress, which showed Planned Parenthood’s ghoulish participation in aborted baby parts trafficking, the relationship between breast cancer organization Susan G. Komen Foundation and the abortion giant was recalled by pro-life legislators with a vengeance. According to CNN: House Republican leaders canceled a vote on Tuesday on legislation that would have created a...

It might be time to salt the earth. Researchers are claiming Giant African land snails are spreading from South Florida and are carrying way more dangerous parasites then previously thought. A recent U.S. Geological Survey published in Journal of Wildlife Diseases, says previous research on Giant African land snails grossly underestimated how many of them are carrying rat lungworm, a parasitic worm that burrows into humans and can cause meningitis. USGS biologist and lead researcher Deborah Iwanowicz discovered the parasite increase by taking multiple tissue samples from the snails—as opposed to previous studies led by lazy scientists who only took...

It was premature born babyA baby came back to life during it's funeral in Kenya and surrprised the crowd present when it woke up smiling inside the coffin box, reports 'AlBayan'. It was a premature born baby (born after seven months of pregnancy last Sunday). After the birth it was transferred to a hospital in the town of Bondo southwestern Kenya to receive appropriate treatment. The father explained to 'Citizen TV' local channel that the infant was in the hospital when the doctors declared it death. But the biggest surprise came when a woman wanted to look at the baby...

Leading pro-life groups are calling on Congress to investigate the Planned Parenthood abortion business after a shocking new expose’ video has caught Planned Parenthood’s top doctor describing how the abortion business sells the body parts of aborted babies. New undercover footage shows Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Senior Director of Medical Services, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, describing how Planned Parenthood sells the body parts of aborted unborn children and admitting she uses partial-birth abortions to supply intact body parts. Federal law prohibits the sale of body parts of aborted babies. In fact, the sale or purchase of human fetal tissue a...

A Liberian woman has died of Ebola in a hospital in Monrovia shortly after being admitted, becoming the sixth confirmed case of the virus since it resurfaced last month after a seven-week lull, a senior medical official said on Tuesday.

Struggling to live in America's $1M city: Photographer captures lives of ordinary San Francisco residents who have been forced to live in cars, trailers, garages and tents following the tech boom Photographer Wenxin Zhang moved to San Francisco in 2011 Discovered a group of people online that had been forced to find alternative means of accommodation 'I visited them alone with mutual trust,' she said The subsequent photo essay is called Goodnight Stories A recent report said that a family needs about $200,000 a year to live comfortably in San Francisco, so long as their children go to public school....

A federal law crafted to fight the mob is giving marijuana opponents a new strategy in their battle to stop the expanding industry: racketeering lawsuits. A Colorado pot shop recently closed after a Washington-based group opposed to legal marijuana sued not just the pot shop but a laundry list of firms doing business with it—from its landlord and accountant to the Iowa bonding company guaranteeing its tax payments. One by one, many of the plaintiffs agreed to stop doing business with Medical Marijuana of the Rockies, until the mountain shop closed its doors and had to sell off its pot...

Public officials are reminding animal owners to vaccinate their pets in the wake of a confirmed rabies case. A cat in the city of Monterey that became aggressive and later died was confirmed by health authorities to have been infected with rabies, only the second laboratory-confirmed case in at least 30 years. It’s difficult to determine how animals get rabies, and health officials are now focused on the health of the family where the animal lived, Monterey County Health Officer Edward Moreno said. “Our priority when we find an animal that has rabies is to identify humans that may have...

I remember when I was very young, a boy no older than 7 I figure, I went into my parent’s bedroom and began playing with my mother’s things. By the time I got caught, I was wearing lipstick, costume jewelry, and high heels. My parents screamed at me and sent me to my room. They told me I was a boy and should not be dressing up like a girl. I remember being very angry and sad about this. My next door neighbors had a daughter a little older than me. I remember thinking she was so cool. She and...

Link only because I am not sure of copyright status.

San Diego, CA — A quietly-handled wrongful termination lawsuit brought in San Diego, California, against Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest gives insight into Planned Parenthood’s defensive mechanisms that kick into full throttle when employees fail to march in lockstep. But more disturbingly, it reveals something sinister about Planned Parenthood’s unethical treatment of at least one minor girl and its aggressive eagerness to cannibalize one of their own rather than admit there might be serious internal problems. The 2014 suit was explained in a well-written piece that appeared in the San Diego Reader, a quirky, alternative newspaper that focuses on...

Whether smoking marijuana contributes to weight gain may depend on how much pot a person smokes, in addition to other factors such the person's gender, according to a new study. Smoking marijuana often gives people the munchies — a sudden increase in appetite that can make them eat a lot at once — so researchers wanted to examine whether this drive to eat might mean that people who smoke pot put on extra pounds over time.

A Nepal hospital said Friday that CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta incorrectly reported that he operated on an 8-year-old girl after the country’s devastating earthquake in April. A top official at the Bir Hospital in Kathmandu, Dr. Ganesh Bahadur Gurung, said Friday that the girl, Salina Dahal, never had brain surgery and has recovered from minor head injuries. Gupta, a practicing brain surgeon, reported days after the April 25 earthquake that he operated on Dahal. CNN said Thursday that it is working to verify the identity of Gupta’s patient, following a published report that he never treated the 8-year-old...

Heavy metal was the No. 1-selling music genre in 1989, and parents feared the worst: that Satan worship, drug use, loads of sex, and suicide went along with it, write researchers in the journal Self and Identity. Records were burned, "Parental Advisory" warning labels were born, and some '90s research suggested that teens who were into metal had a boatload of problems. And then decades passed. How did those metalheads turn out? Pretty OK, found the team led by Humboldt State University psychologist Tasha Howe, reports Billboard.

Squirrel breeding is a real job—and apparently a very dangerous one if you're dealing with the wrong kind of squirrel. After the mysterious deaths of three German men who all worked as breeders of variegated squirrels—a kind of squirrel native to Central America that's sometimes kept as an exotic pet—researchers have identified a new virus that had apparently jumped from the squirrels to the men, LiveScience reports. The men, who were in their 60s and regularly socialized together, died between 2011 and 2013 from inflammation of the brain, and researchers say at least two of them had been scratched or...

The United States has an epidemic brewing within our borders, and the problem is much more serious than most people realize. Lyme disease is spreading fast, and it only takes the bite of a poppy-seed-size tick to contract. Even after treatment, symptoms can be difficult to shake. Those infected can develop severe, rheumatoid arthritis-like joint and muscle pain. Fatigue and neurological disorders — such as numbness, tingling, weakness, and cognitive impairment — can set in too. Left untreated, infections can lead to brain inflammation or heart problems. At least a handful of such cases have proven fatal. A recent study...