Free Republic

Sixty-eight years ago today, Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941 – a date that will live in infamy – the United States was attacked by the Japanese Imperial Navy at Pearl Harbor, at the cost of more than 2,000 lives. My father, who never talked about the war because he was in it, did tell me this once: When he heard about Pearl Harbor “I couldn’t get my hands on a gun fast enough.” It was a different time then in America. It was not unusual to find a Model 94 Winchester or even a bolt-action 1903 Springfield in the average household,...

(CNN) -- Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical Christian leaders last week issued a bold political statement. They intended to target the Obama administration. Inadvertently, they may have also hit probable Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney ought to rank atop the Republican candidates for president in 2012. He finished second in votes cast in the primaries of 2008. He is a candidate with immense private-sector economic expertise in a time of urgent economic debate. But Romney has a political problem: his Mormon religious faith. A Gallup survey in December 2007 found that 18 percent of Republicans would not vote for...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Fewer than three in 10 Americans think Sarah Palin's qualified to be president, according to a new national poll - the least of any of the five potential candidates included in the survey. But another woman tops that list in the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday: two-thirds of the public thinks that Secretary of State HIllary Clinton's qualified for the Oval Office. That's more than Vice President Joe Biden, who's currently next in line for the presidency. According to the poll, 28 percent of Americans say Palin is qualified to run the White House, with seven...

Mitt Romney is heading to Reagan country. The former Massachusetts governor is scheduled to speak this Friday to the Young America's Foundation at the Ronald Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara, California. Romney is expected to be the dinner banquet speaker for the foundation's West Coast Leadership Conference, which consists of young conservatives from 44 colleges and universities across 12 states. "Young people provide much of the energy in the conservative movement, and if we are going to be successful as a party we need to harness that energy and put it work on behalf of the principles we all...

(snip) Although some in the party believe that it should be tilting right in whom to support in future elections, he said, "I will be by and large supporting conservative Republicans" but would not rule out backing some moderates, referencing former President Reagan. "He was the one who coined the term 'the big tent.' He also said that you don't build something by subtraction. So we welcome people who agree with us on most issues. Some will be very conservative on some issues. Some will be less so on others. We welcome you into the party." (snip) "We have a...

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded Arizona State University two grants for alternative energy research that are part of a special DOE program to pursue high-risk, high-reward advances with the potential to change the way the nation generates and consumes energy. ASU’s grants, totaling more than $10 million, are among 37 new DOE grants totaling $151 million to support the program. ASU’s grants are for work on a new class of high-performance metal-air batteries and the use of photosynthetic bacteria to produce automotive fuel from a combination of sunlight, water and carbon dioxide. “ASU is the only university...

<p>Sure, Election Day 2009 will scare moderate Democrats and make passage of Obamacare more difficult. Sure, it makes it easier for resurgent Republicans to raise money and recruit candidates for 2010. But the most important effect of Tuesday’s elections is historical. It demolishes the great realignment myth of 2008.</p>

Two physicists who debunk global warming as a result of man - made carbon emissions.

Statistics, even at their best, don't tell a whole story. A variety of people employ medical statistics dubiously to push pet causes. A perfect example: infant mortality statistics. The officially reported U.S. infant mortality rate has been indisputably high compared with similarly industrialized countries since at least the 1920s. That fact has led to public health officials in the U.S. to conclude the rates are "caused" by poorly distributed health care resources and can be "solved" with a socialized, government-run health care system. However, there's a basic problem with the numbers: Different countries count differently. According to the World Health...

From Fox: Though the United States has by far the highest level of health care spending per capita in the world, we have one of the lowest life expectancies among developed nations Everybody else skews their data. It's not a reflection on our system. Here: "Doctors told me it was against the rules to save my premature baby" Instead, doctors told her to treat the labour as a miscarriage, not a birth, and to expect her baby to be born with serious deformities or even to be still-born. The doctor didn't just come up with that out of thin air,...

One of the biggest myths about the great depression is that FDR's NEW Deal and the related government intervention and public works projects got us out of the Great Depression. The truth is that the New Deal did not work. Instead of creating growth in the private sector, it created government growth that squeezed out the private sector. Of course, the number one public golf course in the country Bethpage Black (where the US Open played this year) was a was a New Deal Federal works project, but that only cures MY depression, it did little for the country. As...

Israel’s deadly 1967 attack on U.S. spy ship is personal for S.C. author The inexplicable attack by a U.S. ally — and subsequent efforts to sweep the incident under the rug by U.S. and Israeli officials alike — is the subject of Charleston author James Scott’s book, “The Attack on the Liberty: The Untold Story of Israel’s Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship.” In compiling his book, Scott, 34, a former reporter for The (Charleston) Post & Courier and The (Rock Hill) Herald, makes use of interviews with survivors, sailors’ correspondence with loved ones, ship records and declassified...

Who knows how the Sarah Palin story will play out? It seems as if every political pundit in America has a take on PalinÂ’s resignation as AlaskaÂ’s governor. They can be mean-spirited (SheÂ’s hiding a scandal!), or cynical (Since she can rake in $60 grand and up for a simple speaking engagement, sheÂ’s taking the money and running like hell.) Some wonder whether this is her way of tuning up for a presidential run in 2012, or is the resignation a case of a hometown girl unable to stand the heat in her kitchen? We will get more information, but...

Harry Potter fans are looking forward to the boy wizard’s next screen adventure, when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opens this month. Pottermania broke loose when J. K. Rowling’s first book appeared on bookstands in 1997, prompting the creation of films, fan websites, and dozens of similarly themed books. Rowling’s world of wizardry has even inspired the name of a dinosaur fossil, Dracorex hogwartsia. But serious researchers are seeing evidence that dragons were more than just fantastical creatures...

Three years ago I mentioned to a Catholic friend that I was starting to work on a book critiquing the Left Behind novels. I explained that it would thoroughly examine premillennial dispensationalism, the unique apocalyptic belief system presented, in fictional format, within those books. Premillennial dispensationalism teaches that the “Rapture” and the Second Coming are two events separated by a time of tribulation and that there will be a future millennial reign of Christ on earth. “Why?” she asked, obviously bewildered. “No one really takes that stuff seriously.” That revealing remark merely reinforced my desire to write Will Catholics...

In politics, conventional wisdom can be slow to die, even when the so-called wisdom is neither true nor wise. So I was reminded on a recent visit to Capitol Hill, when I asked several lawmakers and senior members of their staffs to explain the Democrats’ timidity about standing up to the National Rifle Association by pressing needed measures to curb gun violence. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Obama tossed cold water a few weeks back on Attorney General Eric Holder’s well-founded enthusiasm for reviving the assault weapons ban that Congress and the Bush White House let expire in 2004....

1. Fact: The murder rates in many nations (such as England) were ALREADY LOW BEFORE enacting gun control. Thus, their restrictive laws cannot be credited with lowering their crime rates.(1) 2. Fact: Gun control has done nothing to keep crime rates from rising in many of the nations that have imposed severe firearms restrictions. * Australia: Readers of the USA Today newspaper discovered in 2002 that, "Since Australia's 1996 laws banning most guns and making it a crime to use a gun defensively, armed robberies rose by 51%, unarmed robberies by 37%, assaults by 24% and kidnappings by 43%. While...

‘But the New Testament does not make a big deal out of the Age of the Earth…’ by Peter Milford ... The issue of the age of the earth parallels circumcision. In my experience, the first response from Christians who do not accept the age of the earth that the Scriptures indicate, is to say something like “The New Testament does not make a big deal out of the age of the earth” or “It is not the purpose of the Bible to give the age of the earth”. Their point is that (1) the issue of the age of...

Affirming the reality of an intelligent design for the creation and development of the universe is not a scientific theory, but a statement of faith, said the preacher of the papal household. Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, offering a Lenten meditation to Pope Benedict XVI and top Vatican officials March 13, said the controversy that has arisen between scientists supporting evolution and religious believers promoting creationism or intelligent design is due mainly to a confusion between scientific theory and the truths of faith. The intelligent-design theory asserts that the development and evolution of life is such a hugely complex process that...

March 9, 2009 — The Permian extinction – one of the most dramatic events in the history of life on Earth, in which some 90% of species went extinct...is now being interpreted as a “nonevent” by four geologists. ... Robert Gastaldo and two geology colleagues from Colby College in Maine, and geologist Johann Neveling from Pretoria, studied the Permian-Triassic boundary in the Karoo Basin of South Africa and published a paper in Geology this month,1 titled, “The terrestrial Permian-Triassic boundary event bed is a nonevent.” ... Well, isn’t this an upset.  How much lag time will it take to change...

It's CPAC weekend - the grand rallying of the conservative clan here in Washington. It's a season where conservatives from across the country meet to compare notes, share stories, and seek political consensus. The consensus forming this year however is an ominously dangerous one - ominously dangerous to conservatives themselves that is. Conservatives live in thrall to a historical myth, and this myth may soon cost us dearly. The myth is the myth of the Goldwater triumph of 1964. It goes approximately as follows: In 1964, after years of watered down politics, Republicans turned to a true conservative, Arizona Senator...

Terrible lizards trapped by terrible Flood Tas Walker A trail of fossilized claw marks found in northern Spain reveals the desperation of animals struggling to escape drowning in the Genesis Flood. ... That the footprints were preserved at all indicates the dinosaurs were engulfed by abnormal conditions. Today footprints are quickly obliterated, especially on a beach or in a strong current. But in the sandstone in Spain even the delicate features of the scratches were preserved, which means that sediment covered the tracks (and the ripple marks) soon after the dinosaur struggled past...

CBNNews.com - CROSSROADS BIBLE COLLEGE, Ind. - Darwin's book on human evolution, The Descent of Man, revealed him as what John West calls "a virulent racist." "He did write extensively about how evolution by natural selection creates unequal races, and that in the evolutionary scheme of things, blacks are the closest to apes," he explained. West is the author of Darwin Day in America. "It's not just residual racism," he added. "He's using his scientific theory as a justification for racism and countless scientists after Darwin latched on to that." Hosea Baxter directs reconciliation ministries at Crossroads Bible College. He...

There are many stories of ‘Qavlunaat,’ white-skinned strangers who were encountered in Inuit-occupied lands in times of old. Stories of contact between these foreign people and Inuit were passed down the generations and used mostly to scare children to behave “or the Qavlunaat will get them.” This sparked my curiosity to explore both sides of the encounters from written records and Inuit oral legends to see if some of these events can be correlated. One must recall that these legends were passed down orally in the Inupiaq language. Inuit myths and legends of contact with other people were passed from...

“Many Saw Evil,” the posters for the new Tom Cruise film Valkyrie proclaim, “But They Dared to Stop It.” Or tried, at any rate. The members of what is known in Germany as the “July 20th” plot failed, of course, to kill Hitler and were unable to seize power. If this slight exaggeration amounts to wishful thinking, however, the suggestion that the would-be assassin, Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, and his co-conspirators “saw evil” in the Nazi regime amounts to an outright distortion of the historical record. In fact, Stauffenberg served the Nazi regime loyally almost to the very end...

"Today, Russia doesn't look better or worse than the rest of the world," Evgeny Bryun, Moscow's chief physician, said this week. Despite statistics that prove otherwise, Bryun said the image of the average Russian man as a vodka-swilling beer lover was simply a myth. Russians only seriously began drinking after the end of the Second World War – and the party just lasted too long, he said. "Soldiers got used to drinking at the front, they celebrated the victory, and this celebration lasted for a very long time," Bryun said. Bryun's flippant comments stand in stark contrast to a state...

When during a pre-election debate Barack Obama and John McCain both said that an apparent rise in autism cases might be connected to vaccines, those who knew better squirmed at the lack of scientific knowledge of the two remaining presidential candidates on this topic. In fact, studies have found no link between autism and vaccines. But televised statements by such high-profile people have a way of perpetuating myths. In it's third annual report, the UK group Sense about Science calls the two candidates out on the inaccurate statements, along with a long list of celebrities' scientifically inaccurate claims.

Do we really need to "thank" unions for the 40 hour week, paid vacation, and health benefits? The labor movement had little success organizing U.S. industries, particularly the auto industry, until the 1930s. The CIO was founded in 1935,in response to the AFL’s emphasis on skilled craft unionists. While attempts to organize autoworkers date to the industry’s birth, the auto companies were not fully organized until the late 1930s. The legendary UAW Flint sit-down strike and the “Battle of the Rouge Overpass” both took place in 1937. Meanwhile, labor and auto industry historians say that wages, benefits, and working conditions...

Ford, Chrysler and GM's contributions after 9/11 An interesting commentary...You might find this of interest: 'CNN Headline News did a short news listing regarding Ford and GM's contributions to the relief and recovery efforts in New York and Washington.

Barack Obama and the FDR-Great Depression Mythby Michael Fumento (more by this author) Posted 11/26/2008 ET The cover of Time magazine has Barack Obama photoshopped into Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous convertible, complete with oval-shaped glasses and cigarette holder held between the teeth. “The NEW New Deal,� The cover reads. Surely many who voted for Obama saw him as potentially the new FDR, the man to lead us out of hard economic times. But they’ve been misled, for even FDR wasn’t FDR. He is a quasi-mythical creature who not only didn’t end the Great Depression but probably greatly prolonged the...

Almost overnight, the concept of man-made global warming has become an accepted fact. Debate on this issue is rarely tolerated and millions of people are fearful that man’s activities are leading to a gradual global catastrophe. Cries to reduce auto emissions, burn less fossil fuels and shrink our carbon footprint have made people uncertain what the future holds for planet earth.

With Congress ready to spend $700 billion to prop up the U.S. economy, enacting health-care reform may seem about as likely as the Dow hitting 10,000 again before the end of the year. But it may be more doable than you think, provided we dispel a few myths about how health care works and how much reform Americans are willing to stomach. 1. America has the best health care in the world. Let's bury this one once and for all. The United States is No. 1 in only one sense: the amount we shell out for health care. We have...

Memo to CEOs: Ask for a bailout, and your company will be reduced to a caricature. Recent congressional hearings on the plight of GM, Ford, and Chrysler have illuminated a few important issues—like how the Detroit executives travel when on business. Populist politicians and gotcha journalists delighted at the prospect of rich CEOs riding corporate jets to ask for taxpayer money. There was a little talk about jobs and cars and the foundering economy, too. But you might have missed that part, or gotten confused by a welter of misperceptions that emerged from the spectacle of supplicant CEOs trying last-ditch...

Whenever the economy stumbles, politicians and interest groups commonly argue that government spending should be increased. Based on a theory known as Keynesianism, this increase is supposed to boost economic performance. Yet the notion that bigger government leads to more growth is both theoretically unsound and empirically false. This strange theory was first put forth back during the 1930s, when America was suffering from a deep downturn. An economist named John Maynard Keynes argued that the economy could be boosted if the government borrowed money and spent it. According to this Keynesian approach, this new spending would put money in...

Atlanta & Savannah Victory Rallies with Mitt Romney~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                                      Please Join Senator Saxby Chambliss&Governor Mitt Romney Atlanta Victory Rally 2008 Friday, November 21, 200810:30 am - 11:30 am InterContinental HotelVenetian Ballroom3315 Peachtree Rd NEAtlanta, GA 30326 Savannah Victory Rally 2008 Friday, November 21, 20082:30 pm - 3:30 pm Charles H. Morris Center10 East Broad StreetSavannah, GA 31401 Please RSVP to RSVP@saxby.org or call (678)589-4888

The election of Barack Hussein Obama, the first man of African decent elected President of the United States, will provide continuous changes for a very long time. Gone now is the handy excuse many Blacks have used for refusing to act and speak like members of our American society. “It’s not worth my even trying because ‘the man’ will never let me get ahead” died on Nov 4, 2008. ‘The man’ actually elected a Black Commander in Chief, so demanding Ebonics as the price for school attendance is over. The days of Black self imposed isolation from American society are...

After a losing presidential campaign, the candidate quickly (and often cruelly) is painted as an object lesson in what not to do — but that should not happen in 2008. In order to truly revive itself, the GOP should be more like the real John McCain in the future, and less like the conservative cast of the past decade: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Tom Delay. And it certainly should not look to the likes of Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin to lead a restoration. You do the math: America has a moderate majority — 50% of Americans are...

Please pay attention Roger Wicker and Greg Davis There are many myths in southern culture. One of the latest is the myth of the modern day, "conservative" Mississippi Democrat. Currently, Senator Roger Wicker (R) and Greg Davis are locked into real battles with former Governor Ronnie Musgrove (D) and Rep. Travis Childers (D), respectively, for federal contests. Let's start this conversation with two basic facts. First, Mississippi is overwhelmingly conservative. That's a given. To even have a prayer (pardon the pun), a Democrat for statewide office must be conservative on God, guns and abortion. That's just a fact. A "true...

You’ve seen them in interactive focus groups, and most recently in the Town hall debate: The Undecideds. It makes a normal voter wonder, “Where in the heck to they find these people?” The answer was inadvertently revealed at by Domenico Montanaro in his interview with “undecided” voter Oliver Clark, one of the Town hall debate questioners … …the Sunday before last, I received a call from the Gallop Poll. They asked a few questions regarding my choice in the Presidential election. They asked who I would vote for. I said most likely I would be voting for Barack Obama. They...

The other night on CNBC my friend Barry Ritholtz told a good story. He said that for the time in credit market history loans between 2002 and 2006 were made on the basis of the ability to cut up and syndicate the debt, as opposed to lenders' ability to pay. It's a good story. But is it true? No, other than in the most superficial sense. I'm assuming Barry was really saying that it was the first time loans were made because there was an external appetite for the loans as byproducts, instead of lender concern about prudently putting out...

There are myths, misconceptions and fallacies peppering the American landscape that linger like holiday-season in-laws. Contrary to popular belief, Charles Manson did not audition for the Monkees television show in the 1960s, Channel “One” was not left off of VHS television set dials because it was reserved for military use, and marking “Jedi” as your religion on a census form will not force the federal government to grant it official status. Another fable often spun by class warriors and peddled to – and believed – by a good portion the American public is that the “rich” in this country do...

Thank you, FOX News!

Joe Biden once got in trouble for plagiarizing a speech and inflating his academic record. So it will not surprise you to find that his famous working-class background turns out to be mythical. But it may surprise you to learn that Biden isn't the one who has trouble with the facts. In his Wednesday night speech at the Democratic convention, Biden referred to "those of us who grew up in middle-class neighborhoods like Scranton and Wilmington." In the video preceding his address, he said that the people he knew as a boy didn't regard themselves as working class but as...

A few weeks back, I wrote a column titled, "Who Wrote 'Dreams From My Father'?" My research led me to the conclusion that a literary neophyte like Obama could not have written the memoir on his own. It was simply too well crafted. I was also suspicious about his claim that publishers had sought him out, while still unknown, contract in hand. I doubted, too, that the publisher would have paid him a hefty advance. And I refused to believe that his publisher would have invested the hefty ghostwriting fee needed to rescue the project after four years of amateurish...

Mr Obama is making a big pitch to Republicans. He has spoken glowingly of Ronald Reagan, is friendly to religious voters and has invested heavily in advertising and staffing not just in the swing states of the Midwest but also in such Republican strongholds as Texas. Yet there are a number of myths about "Obamacans" (as Mr Obama calls them) or "Obamacons" (as pundits do). Their numbers are overestimated and their import is misunderstood. It is neither on foreign policy nor on economics but on religious values that Mr Obama has made his big pitch to party-switchers. There has been...

Reid Wilson of Real Clear Politics had a column yesterday, "Dems finding success in the center" about how democrats have been having success winning House seats by recruiting "conservative" democrat candidates, and they were following the model again in 2008. While it is true that the democrat party has had success in executing this tactic, this success is due more to their ability to fool the public about these candidates than anything else. Wilson mentioned a few members such as John Barrow of Georgia and Heath Shuler of North Carolina (perhaps better known in the South for his college football...

Myth of Dwarf Dinos in Dracula Country Confirmed Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News June 13, 2008 -- In 1900, the sister of an eccentric Austro-Hungarian aristocrat named Baron von Nopsca found a tiny bone on the baron's family estate in Transylvania, a historical region in present-day Romania. The baron, who was a dinosaur buff, identified the bone as belonging to a dwarf dino that likely once lived on an island in the region. The motorcycle-riding baron's outrageous theories were ridiculed and largely dismissed, but now new evidence suggests his proposed island of dwarf dinosaurs did indeed exist in the land of...

(CNSNews.com) - Reports circulating on the Internet tell of an oil field spanning parts of western North Dakota and eastern Montana where 400 billion barrels of oil supposedly are just waiting to be tapped. However, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) tells Cybercast News Service that those huge estimates are "a myth." A USGS report issued in April estimates that there are between 3 billion to 4.3 billion barrels of oil in what is referred to as "the Bakken Formation" -- well below the 400 billion barrels discussed on the Web, but up from the previous estimate of 151 million...

For years those who have repeated the simple truth that while there are Muslims who are moderate, there is no moderate Islam, have been vilified as bigots and “Islamophobes,” and marginalized in the same way by Beltway analysts and the mainstream media (both liberal and faux-fearless conservative) in favor of those who were determined to “engage moderate Muslims.”