Free Republic

... The so-called purity test is a 10-point checklist -- a suicide pact, really -- of alleged Republican positions... James Bopp Jr., chief sponsor of the resolution and a committee member from Indiana, has said that "the problem is that many conservatives have lost trust in the conservative credentials of the Republican Party." Actually, no, the problem is that many conservatives have lost faith in the ability of Republican leaders to think. The resolutions aren't so much statements of principle as dogmatic responses to complex issues that may, occasionally, require more than a Sharpie check in a little square. It's...

PASCO COUNTY (Bay News 9) -- Owning a small business can be difficult and starting soon local entrepreneurs will be dishing out a lot more cash to the government. The annual fee employers pay to fund unemployment benefits is about to go up drastically. The fee is jumping from $8.40 per employee to $100.30. "That'll have a huge burden on the small business man and woman -- any business in the state of Florida -- who are struggling right now," said state Sen. Mike Fasano. The state is out of unemployment money according to the Florida Department of Revenue. It's...

Pelosi On Jail Time For No Health Care: "The Legislation Is Very Fair In This Respect" KOMO-TV: Do you think it’s fair to send people to jail who don’t buy health insurance? Pelosi: .. "the legislation is very fair in this respect." Video

It all started with a parody from Tom McMahon, who was aggravated by the extremely smug and intellectually slovenly bumper sticker in which a variety of religious symbols spell out “COEXIST.” McMahon produced a parody bumper sticker with Nazi and Communist symbols substituted.

Oct 2, 2009 — A new fossil human ancestor has taken center stage. Those who love Lucy, the australopithecine made famous by Donald Johanson (and numerous TV specials), are in for a surprise. Lucy is a has been. Her replacement is not Desi Arnaz, but is designated Ardi, short for Ardipithecus ramidus – the new leading lady in the family tree. Actually, she has been around for years since her discovery in Ethiopia in 1992. It has taken Tim White and crew 15 years to piece together the bones that were in extremely bad condition. But now, Ardi has made...

In software, it’s called feature creep. This is the bloat or encrustation that forms on a working computer program. It is caused by adding overly specific functions that originate with a “Wouldn’t it be cool to have a…?” but which are not strictly necessary, or even inapposite to the software’s main purpose. As a piece of software ages, function creep is almost inevitable unless it is kept harshly in check. Lead engineers must be brutal in slapping down minor functionaries that come to him with wish lists. “We need new rules!” they will plead, tears in eyes. But he must...

After the federal government put up hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out Wall Street, the largest labor union in America wants those firms to return the favor. The AFL-CIO reportedly is promoting a proposal to tax every single stock transaction, and it's gained some support among Democrats. According to The Hill, the tiny tax would be about a tenth of a percent -- but it could mean a lot of money for companies, like Goldman Sachs, that are making billions and conducting a high volume of trades. Union policy director Thea Lee told the newspaper that the tax...

Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview that Russia's economy is "withering," and suggested the trend will force the country to make accommodations to the West on a wide range of national-security issues, including loosening its grip on former Soviet republics and shrinking its vast nuclear arsenal. **** "I think we vastly underestimate the hand that we hold," he said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's push for quick action by Congress on climate change legislation suffered a setback on Thursday when the U.S. Senate committee leading the drive delayed work on the bill until September. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer said her self-imposed deadline of early August for finishing writing a bill to combat global warming has been put off until after Congress returns from a recess that ends in early September.

I've been trying to grasp for a truth that is so obvious that all of us know it. But it's not a polite truth, so we don't talk about it. Yet I think it's important to say it out loud, because it is a truth that haunts our national discourse. As a nation we are under the thumb of idiots. Not just indoctrinated, or wrong-thinking, or power-hungry, or manipulative, or even malevolent people. No, I mean real lowbrows, people who constantly fall for really stupid ideas. Neanderthals. (Look at the Governor of California just running the state budget into the...

The Obama administration itself estimates that cap and trade will involve increased costs from 2012 to 2019 alone of $645 billion, and admits in its own budget that the actual costs could be much higher than that, depending on permit prices over those years. Indeed, other estimates put the costs three times higher. So the increased burden on each Ameri can over this period alone would be $2,100 to $6,300. For a family with two children, that would be $8,400 to $25,200, with much more to come after 2019. These increased costs are effectively a new tax on the American...

Knowledge that you can eat? That's exactly what local school parents and teachers have been cooking up. Carrots, celery, kumquats and lemons are only a few of the delectable items that parents and students get from the school garden at Booksin Elementary. While school gardens have been gaining momentum in San Jose, one group of parents is pushing to bring garden-based curriculum into more classrooms. The Booksin school foundation and parent volunteers are working on a grass roots pilot program to turn the campus garden at 1590 Dry Creek Road into a training center for teachers from other schools in...

As President Obama met with top advisers on the evening of April 15, he faced one of the sharpest policy divides of his young administration.... Seated in Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's West Wing office with about a dozen of his political, legal and security appointees, Obama requested a mini-debate in which one official was chosen to argue for releasing the memos and another was assigned to argue against doing so. When it ended, Obama dictated on the spot a draft of his announcement that the documents would be released, while most of the officials watched, according to an official...

Stone Blades Cut Back Evolutionary Dates by Brian Thomas, M.S.* Evolutionary anthropologists once thought that stone knives were developed in the late Stone Age, around 40,000 years ago. That figure was later revised to 200,000, around the Middle Stone Age, when stone blades were discovered in lower strata. Now stone blades have been found in Kenyan rock layers dated at about 500,000 years old according to evolutionary estimates.1 Thus, the original claim that “40,000 years ago, man made his first stone implements” was off by over 92 percent, suggesting that evolutionary depictions of human history are unreliable....

In Havana, the seven Democrats visited the families of the prisoners and came away inspired....If only the group had met with even one prisoner of conscience or one of the wives, mothers, daughters or sisters of the 75 independent journalists, librarians and human-rights advocates imprisoned in Cuba's ''Black Spring'' of 2003... Or the seven could have traveled three hours from Havana to see the hunger-striking dissidents led by Jorge Luis ''Antúnez'' Garcia in Placetas. Or they could have asked to see Oscar Elias Biscet, a doctor serving 25 years in prison for following the peaceful resistance of Martin Luther King...

during the last two years italian architectural firm studiomobile have been working in the united arab emirates, developing housing projects and infrastructure projects. most recently they developed their concept 'seawater vertical farm'. the seawater vertical farm uses seawater to cool and humidify greenhouses and to convert sufficient humidity back in to fresh water to irrigate the crops. the project has been presented in dubai where there is an absence of fresh water and local cultivations, a problem of urban transport and a high soil value, making this concept a feasible one.

<p>House Passes Mandatory National Service Bill http://www.infowars.com/house-passes-mandatory-national-service-bill/ The House passed a bill yesterday which includes disturbing language indicating young people will be forced to undertake mandatory national service programs as fears about President Barack Obama’s promised “civilian national security force” intensify.</p>

State officials say Minnesota is working on a pilot program to test the idea of charging drivers for each mile they drive. Other states around the country are considering a vehicle mileage tax, as revenues from the gas tax are expected to decline.

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy." -- Daniel Webster Obama and Company have piled one mistake on top of another with AIG. First off, they should have never pumped 173 billion dollars into AIG in the first place. At best, we should have used loans and insurance to help keep them solvent. At worst, we should have let them go under -- but instead, the government chose to buy into AIG. Then, Chris Dodd and the Obama Administration worked together to protect the bonuses at companies like AIG without realizing it would become a hot...

Reporting from Sacramento -- Errant motorists beware: Puppy hit-and-run could soon be a crime. Pushing animal rights in a new direction, a state lawmaker has proposed slapping California motorists with a fine and possible jail time if they flee after hitting a jaywalking dog, cat or any other pet or farm animal. The measure by Mike Eng (D-Monterey Park) would require that drivers attempt to provide aid to an injured critter and notify the owner or animal-control authorities. It's one of a herd of bills in the Legislature that could test the boundaries of what constitutes humane treatment of animals...

UK Telegraph -- The NSIDC somewhat shamefacedly admitted that a problem had developed with one of its satellites. The data for the previous 45 days was found to be so faulty that it had been withdrawn. But inevitably this provoked the question as to why quality control seemed to be so poor on one of the world's leading official sources of climate data that it had taken an outside observer to point out that something was wrong. This is by no means the first time that data on which the official case for global warming rests have had to be...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's climate czar said the Environmental Protection Agency will soon determine that carbon-dioxide emissions represent a danger to the public and propose new rules to regulate emissions of the greenhouse gas from a range of industries. Carol Browner, special adviser to the president on climate change and energy, said in an interview Sunday that the EPA is looking at a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that requires the agency to determine whether carbon dioxide endangers public health or welfare. And the agency "will make an endangerment finding," she said. "The next step is a notice of proposed...

GM's new restructuring plan seeks another $16.6 billion in government aid -- for now. Chrysler wants an additional $5 billion. The $30 billion that GM has either received or requested since December doesn't count the $8 billion it wants to develop fuel-efficient cars, and another $6 billion it's soliciting from foreign governments. For these taxpayer subsidies, the government could buy hundreds of thousands of GM cars a month and give them to deserving citizens. Make mine a Corvette, please. Before deciding what to do with Detroit's demands, uh, requests, government officials first need to confront a fundamental question: How could...

When Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States on Jan. 20, Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance” sat atop the pop charts. The ode to escapism might not have captured the mood of the whole country (everyone didn’t vote for change, after all), but it definitely reflected the sentiments of most of the musical community. During the past few years, countless artists have vehemently despised George Bush, while voicing support for Obama. In the U.K., the Guardian noted “You could construct a decent box-set of anti-Bush songs… covering ground from Bright Eyes to Eminem, Pink to...

U.S. "war on terror" eroded rights worldwide: experts Mon Feb 16, 2009 11:22am EST By Laura MacInnis GENEVA (Reuters) - Washington's "war on terror" after the September 11 attacks has eroded human rights worldwide, creating lingering cynicism that the United Nations must now combat, international law experts said on Monday. Mary Robinson, who was the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights when al Qaeda militants flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001, said the United States caused harm with some of the ways it responded. "Seven years after 9/11 it is time to take stock...

...Senate Democrats struck a hard-won deal yesterday with a handful of Republican moderates...White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel attended the final meetings in Reid's office last night to work out lingering differences. Before Emanuel arrived, Collins said, Democrats were advocating $63 billion in cuts. "Then Rahm got involved, and a much better proposal came forward," she said.

In his Williamsburg speech, Obama also gave his most concise answer yet to the question of whether the stimulus bill will really stimulate the economy. His answer: if it's spending, it's stimulus. And if it's full of earmarks, well, stuff happens: THE PRESIDENT: Then there's the argument, well, this is full of pet projects. When was the last time that we saw a bill of this magnitude move out with no earmarks in it? Not one. (Applause.) And when you start asking, well, what is it exactly that is such a problem that you're seeing, where's all this waste and...

Obamas read to DC school children in surprise stop By BEN FELLER The Associated Press Tuesday, February 3, 2009; 2:24 PM WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama have made a surprise stop at a public school to read to children. The Obamas were at the Capital City Public Charter School in northwest Washington Tuesday. The president told a group of gleeful second-graders: “We were just tired of being in the White House.” ...snip...

The Common Fisheries Policy is being extended to recreational anglers Posted By: Daniel Hannan at Jan 21, 2009 at 17:31:18 I've just done something which I do very rarely: I've attended a Committee of the European Parliament. Regular readers will have gathered by now that I think there are altogether too many EU laws.

Doing the kind of investigative reporting we should expect from the major media, a financial research and consulting firm has released a major analysis of the “credit crisis” that concludes that the claims made by Treasury Department Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke to justify a socialist takeover of the financial industry were demonstrably false. The analysis, Flawed Assumptions about the Credit Crisis: A Critical Examination of US Policymakers,concludes that the result of the unjustified massive federal intervention in the economy could be similar to the economic crisis in the Weimar Republic of 1922, where disastrous hyperinflation...

Southeast Francesca Lane cuts up and around a hillside to reveal the boom-time promise of Happy Valley circa 2006. Young families rolled in to snap up $600,000, stone-fronted homes with Mount Hood views. They came for the country meets cul-de-sac life, solid schools and a 4,000-square-foot edition of the American dream. Speculators trailed on their heels for the next get-rich-quick venture. Francesca Lane circa 2008 isn't dreamy any longer. One of every five homes or lots on the street has fallen into foreclosure since the neighborhood sprang up three years ago. The street offers a grim picture of how greed...

This past week, Gov. Chris Gregoire of Washington State allowed—in the spirit of multiculturalism and intellectual-immolation for which the Northwest is (in)famous—a large sign to be placed next to a Nativity scene and a Christmas holiday tree (and a menorah) in the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington: "At this season of THE WINTER SOLSTICE may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds." Yes, I am truly shocked: I cannot believe that a Nativity scene and...

For a blind watchmaker, Evolution is quite the seer. Science articles often personify Evolution into a wizard and worker of miracles. This is odd, considering that evolution is supposed to be an aimless, purposeless process of chance and necessity with no goals in mind. Evolution, the Learner: Evolution learns from past environments, we are told by Science Daily. Scientists at the Weizmann Institute believe that evolution learns its lessons so well it can parry them into inventions by digging into its bag of mistakes. The article states nonchalantly, “evolution can learn the rules of the environment and develop organisms that...

Greg Campbell is an obscure writer for the Fort Collins, Colo. But on Oct. 26, he penned what serves as the perfect window into the mind of many Barack Obama supporters. Campbell attended an Obama rally with his 11-year-old son, Turner. Turner was excited by Obamas typical American Dream stump speech. Campbell himself was excited not by Obama, but by his sons reaction: “For me, (Obama’s message) sunk in because I could see it through the eyes of an 11-year-old.” We have reached a dangerous point in American politics when parents take their voting cues from 11-year-old children. But Campbell...

American Express, the nation’s last big independent credit card company, said late Monday that it would transform into a bank holding company to strengthen its position in the market turmoil. Federal Reserve banking regulators said they approved its application because of the “unusual and exigent circumstances” roiling financial markets and the company’s interest in tapping up to $3.8 billion in government money. As a full-fledged bank, American Express would gain greater access to the Treasury Department’s bailout plan for banks, a move that might allow it to lend more freely and perhaps acquire a larger deposit-taking institution. American Express customers...

The Republican Party as it is now has no chance in a large part of the country, and lacks direction in the rest. The only one I can see at this time that has his hand on the pulse of the movement is Rush Limbaugh. A new base of operations needs to be established and soon before even the remnants of the movement are scattered with such things as the fairness doctrine. So I am appealing to you Rush Limbaugh to start a new party.

Prophet Yahweh, Seer of Yahweh, Master UFO Caller says that on October 31, 2008, superhuman black men, from other planets, will appear in their spaceships and hover over his UFO Summoning School for three days as a sign that all Americans should vote for Obama as President. YAHWEH wants people to know that if Barak Obama does not become President, America will quickly be led into a war with Russia via Iran that will result in: a cut off of oil from the Persian Gulf, a great depression, stock market crash, runaway inflation, devaluation of the dollar, food shortages, riots,...

Whitminster Endowed Church of England Primary School, near Stroud, has decided not to give pupils lists of words to learn by rote as homework. Headmistress Debbie Marklove said there was a risk that children would feel a "sense of failure" if, having learned the words at home, they were unable to spell them at school the next day....

I just arrived home after driving my sons to school. Usually we listen to music as we drive, but today I insisted that we listen to talk radio. I like to flip around between the liberal and conservative radio stations as I drive to hear what the talk show hosts and my fellow americans are chatting about. When I switched to Jay Marvins show on AM 760 here in Boulder, he was talking about Sarah Palin having the intelligence of a 16 year old. Then a woman called in and righteously claimed that his analogy was "insulting to sixteen year...

In advance of tonight’s vice presidential debate, fewer than four-in-ten (37%) Americans say Sarah Palin is qualified to serve as president if necessary, while a majority (63%) say her opponent, Joe Biden, is qualified for the job. More than half (52%) viewed Palin as qualified in early September. Women are slightly less likely than men to view Palin as qualified. Both Palin and Biden are viewed favorably by a majority of Americans, but while views of Biden have remained virtually unchanged over the past month, the number of people viewing Palin unfavorably has risen from 32% to currently 40% as...

BAY RIDGE – Adding to the hotly contested battles to replace outgoing Congressman Vito Fossella is a political “crazy-quilt” pattern to Democrat Mike McMahon’s campaign after his endorsement by Staten Island’s top Conservative, while not so favorite GOP son Robert Straniere is upset over apparent dissentient inter-party “dirty tricks.” In one of Campaign ‘08’s bizarre political twists, Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro, Richmond County’s Conservative Party executive vice chair, endorsed McMahon. This was accepted by the moderate Staten Island councilman as a logical move, given his working relationship with Molinaro since 2002. Molinaro, who was elected twice as borough...

We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson told the Guardian last week. At first sight this looks like wise counsel from the climate science adviser to Defra. But the idea that we could adapt to a 4C rise is absurd and dangerous. Global warming on this scale would be a catastrophe that would mean, in the immortal words that Chief Seattle probably never spoke, "the end of living and the beginning of survival" for humankind. Or perhaps the beginning of our extinction. The collapse of the polar ice caps would become inevitable, bringing long-term...

A 25-year-old driver in Cass County offered a lesson Sunday in what not to do while driving. When pulled over by a sheriff's deputy, not only was he traveling at speeds near 80 miles per hour, but he also said he'd drifted into the wrong lane because he was text-messaging, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety said Monday. As if that weren't enough, he was arrested on suspicion of drinking and driving. "This is the kind of traffic event where almost everything that could go wrong, did go wrong," said Nathan Bowie, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety....

The country's largest medical association is set to issue a formal apology today for its historical antipathy toward African American doctors, expressing regret for a litany of transgressions, including barring black physicians from its ranks for decades and remaining silent during battles on landmark legislation to end racial discrimination.

The United States needs a new law requiring that the president consult with Congress before going to war, a blue-ribbon panel led by two former secretaries of state said Tuesday. The current War Powers Resolution is "ineffective, and it should be repealed and it should be replaced," James Baker said in a joint appearance with Warren Christopher, announcing the results of the study they led. The recommendation follows failed efforts by Democrats in Congress to put a stop to the war in Iraq or to put conditions on President Bush's conduct of it. Congress passed a joint resolution to authorize...

There's a story from the Ass Press on Yahoo about a Minnesota doofus (named in the article as a college student) who tried to sell his vote on eBay for $10. He might get upto 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Look it up on Yahoo (if you're interested).

...So when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought June 4, Hartridge decided it was only right to let her front lawn die to save water. "The whole water conservation ethic is very important to me," said Hartridge, a state employee who bikes or rides the bus to work. But that ethic didn't agree with her neighbors, or with the city. Before Hartridge could plan new landscaping, a neighbor complained to the city about her brown lawn, and the Code Enforcement Department slapped the family with a citation. Their small brick home was declared a "public nuisance" in violation of...

THE power of the wind and the tide have been harnessed – now the footfall of trudging shoppers is to become the latest source of emission-free energy. Underfloor generators, powered by “heel strike” and designed by British engineers, may soon be installed in supermarkets and railway stations.

...In 1976, Washington became the first major American city to ban handguns. But since that day, handgun technology has changed dramatically. In fact, the editor of Shooting Sports Retailer, a gun industry magazine, observed in 1997: "Firepower is increasing. So is the killing potential as guns shrink in size and concealability." We hope the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will take that fact into account when they decide this month whether the District's handgun ban is constitutional. Here in Philadelphia, the deadly shift can be measured by the rate of violence in 2006, which resulted in more than 2,000...

EDINBURG TX - Some opponents of the border fence are preparing civil disobedience when the bulldozers move into the Rio Grande Valley late next month. Speaking in an individual capacity, members of the No Border Wall coalition told the Guardian that a number of protests are planned, both locally and nationally. Members of the group made the comments after speaking out against the levee-wall plan at this week’s Hidalgo County Commissioner’s Court meeting. “There are people ready to do civil disobedience, people who have experience in doing civil disobedience, who are not afraid to do that,” said No Border Wall...