Free Republic

John Judis has a provocative web article about how the Pennsylvania primary exposed Barack Obama's potential weaknesses as a general election candidate. It's defnitely worth a read. However, I'd add a couple points to balance out the gloomy picture he paints. First, you can't automatically assume that any constituency that didn't support him in the primary also won't support him in the general election. John details how Obama's share of white upscale voters diminished, and he attributes this to the Wright controversy. Maybe, or maybe those voters -- especially the women -- just preferred Hillary Clinton, but would also prefer...

CHICAGO (AP) — Newsflash for rock stars and teenagers: It turns out everything doesn't go downhill as we age — the golden years really are golden.That's according to eye-opening research that found the happiest Americans are the oldest, and older adults are more socially active than the stereotype of the lonely senior suggests.The two go hand-in-hand — being social can help keep away the blues."The good news is that with age comes happiness," said study author Yang Yang, a University of Chicago sociologist. "Life gets better in one's perception as one ages."A certain amount of distress in old age is...

t's the 800-pound gorilla of U.S. education. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the sweeping legislation enacted six years ago to improve public schools, seems to make a lot of people unhappy. But President Bush, undaunted by the barrage of criticism aimed at this beleaguered measure by states, teachers' unions and politicians on both sides of the aisle, is pushing Congress to reauthorize it this year . Many Capitol Hill observers believe that it won't survive without the political clout a new president and Congress would bring -- but after a starring role in five straight presidential elections, education...

Once again, the ‘man-caused’ global warming advocates are over blowing an insignificant event. A shelf of ice from the Antarctic has broken off, (an event that is totally natural by the way) and the Al Gore wannabees are crying bloody murder. The newspapers printed large page long articles about the event and completely ignored the evidence which shows that most of the Antarctic has been cooling and making record ice since the 1970’s. I’m surprised the news paper columnists were even able to type their articles- their hands must have been shaking quite badly when they received the earth shattering...

What is it about Russia that drives the Anglo-American world mad? Soviet communism collapses, the empire is relinquished. Then come the wild hopes and failures of the 1990s—including the 1993 half-coup and the tank assault on Russia's legislature, the results-adjusted referendum on a new constitution (still in force), the dubious privatisations, the war in Chechnya and the financial default in 1998. But after all that, in December 1999 Boris Yeltsin apologises, steps down early—and names his prime minister and former secret police chief Vladimir Putin as acting president. To widespread consternation, Yeltsin predicts that the obscure spy is the man...

Now, in the midst of the surge, the Bush administration has done an about-face. Having lost the civil war, many Sunnis were suddenly desperate to switch sides — and Gen. David Petraeus was eager to oblige. The U.S. has not only added 30,000 more troops in Iraq — it has essentially bribed the opposition, arming the very Sunni militants who only months ago were waging deadly assaults on American forces. To engineer a fragile peace, the U.S. military has created and backed dozens of new Sunni militias, which now operate beyond the control of Iraq's central government.

For more than 12 years we listened to Rush every day at our families software business.I distinctly remember hearing a call from a female who asked if there was a Mr. Snerdly.Rush said that he was made up and that he was merely an alter ego for bouncing ideas off of himself, Like Rush was being his own Devil's advocate.Someone has told me that they have actually heard Mr. Snerdly speaking on air.I know the person who told me that is a certifiable flake, but am I losing my mind? Thanks.

It’s a lonely job, working the phones at a college rape crisis center. Day after day, you wait for the casualties to show up from the alleged campus rape epidemic—but no one calls. Could this mean that the crisis is overblown? No: it means, according to the campus sexual-assault industry, that the abuse of coeds is worse than anyone had ever imagined. It means that consultants and counselors need more funding to persuade student rape victims to break the silence of their suffering. The campus rape movement highlights the current condition of radical feminism, from its self-indulgent bathos to its...

ASHEVILLE, N.C., Feb. 21 (UPI) -- A U.S. climatologist said there was no consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed for a new ice age. Thomas Peterson of the National Climatic Data Center said a survey of scientific journals of the era showed that only seven supported global cooling, 44 predicted warming and 20 others were neutral, USA Today reported Thursday. "An enduring popular myth suggests that in the 1970s the climate science community was predicting 'global cooling' and an 'imminent' ice age, an observation frequently used by those who would undermine what climate scientists say today about...

LOL. There was another article this weekend about big donor GOP liberals worried that the party was too right wing and demanding changes in the structure etc.... This story comes around every so often, usually because someone is trying to benefit financially or politically from the effort. Sometimes both. These articles always make me laugh. Why? Because it is all fantasy. The State GOP central Committee is not controlled by conservatives and hasn't been for the over 15 years I've been an actual member. I should point out I've been a member of the Executive Committee of the CRP for...

You can't read a story about John McCain without seeing the word "maverick." But is it true? Now that John McCain is the all-but-certain Republican nominee for president, there is one thing we know for sure about how the general election will play out: The Democrat is going to be at a serious disadvantage in the media. This will be true even if that nominee is Barack Obama, who has gotten better coverage thus far than Hillary Clinton. Reporters find his candidacy a compelling story, but that attraction has its limitations. When it comes to John McCain, however, it's pure...

LONDON (AFP) - Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real. The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth. And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist.

Every once in a while, some pollster comes up with a survey that shows what idiots Westerners can be. They especially like to pick on Americans and their rather insular attitude towards geography, being unable in large numbers to actually find Iraq on a globe or to identify the correct continent for Guyana (South America, in case anyone asks). Jay Leno has a running gag on the Tonight Show where he goes out in the street and asks people simple questions and films them getting the answers spectacularly wrong. So I have some sympathy with our friends in Britain this...

Quarter of Brits think Churchill was myth: poll 1 hour, 1 minute ago LONDON (AFP) - Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real. The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth. And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist. Three percent thought Charles Dickens, one of...

The gods have made their choice. The Olympians have found their anointed one. Bow, bow, before the vessel of the Divine Spark! So sayeth the priestly class of the mainstream media as they witness the divine laying of hands from the Kennedys upon the New Deliverer, Barack Obama. He is, quoth ABC's Terry Moran, the "new son of Camelot." Moran continued: "Ted and Caroline Kennedy pass the torch to Barack Obama to carry the legacy of JFK." David Wright, also of ABC, proclaimed, "the audacity of hope had its rendezvous with destiny ... Obama is now an adopted son of...

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney plans to run a "significant" level of television ads in California and other states that vote Tuesday in essentially a national primary, aides said Thursday, signaling a willingness to aggressively try to derail Republican front-runner John McCain.

Even with their candidate out of the race, Fred Thompson’s supporters can make a big impact in Florida. They should do so by supporting Rudy Giuliani. More than any other candidate, Rudy matches Thompson’s conservative credentials in the three most important areas: he offers a conservative economic policy, an explicit promise to nominate only “strict constructionist” judges, and a strong dedication to national security. On the economy, social issues, and defense, a Giuliani presidency will take the nation in a clearly conservative direction—and he can actually beat Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in November. With a win—or a strong showing—in...

Reporters don't like to call politicians liars, even when they lie. We tend to use euphemisms — "at odds with the facts" being a favorite. But Mitt Romney is a liar — a flagrant repeat offender. Everyone knows it, and the press doesn't quite know what to do about it. Yesterday, Associated Press reporter Glen Johnson couldn't take it anymore, interrupting Romney when he said, "I don't have lobbyists running my campaign. I don't have lobbyists that are tied to my —" "That's not true," Johnson interjected. "Ron Kaufman's a lobbyist." Kaufman, a longtime Massachusetts politico and a lobbyist, has...

Mitt Romney: The Real TruthDavid French No American governor has faced more critical cultural issues than Mitt Romney, Massachusetts’ chief executive from 2003 to 2007. In the midst of Governor Romney’s efforts to rescue his state from a fiscal crisis and create lasting and innovative health care solutions, activist judges and a far-left legislature forced issues of same-sex “marriage,” abortion, religious liberty, stem cell research, and gay rights into the forefront. Each time he was challenged, the Governor not only made the conservative choice, but also did so with an optimistic, unifying message. In doing so, he became a...

Thursday, January 24, 2008 Romney Scores Veteran Conservative Endorsement Posted by: Matt Lewis at 4:19 PM Jonathan Martin reports that conservative icon (and personal hero to yours truly), Morton Blackwell has endorsed Mitt Romney for President. (Previously, Morton had endorsed Fred Thompson.) While Morton Blackwell may not be a household name, he is, without a doubt, one of the most important conservative leaders in America. It's safe to say he has acolytes serving in the highest echelons of government -- as well as in every major GOP presidential campaign. Here's one small example that will give you a glimpse into...

Witnesses have come forward to say they remember seeing Martin Luther King Jr. and presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s father marching together in 1963, Politico reported, after questions were raised about whether such a march ever happened. The issue drew attention after Romney said during a major speech on faith in College Station, Texas, earlier this month that “I saw my father march with Martin Luther King.”

As the fifth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom nears, the fabulists are again trying to weave their own version of the war. The latest myth is that the "surge" is working. In President Bush's pithy formulation, the United States is now "kicking ass" in Iraq. The gallant Gen. David Petraeus, having been given the right tools, has performed miracles, redeeming a situation that once appeared hopeless. Sen. John McCain has gone so far as to declare that "we are winning in Iraq." While few others express themselves quite so categorically, McCain's remark captures the essence of the emerging story line:...

A representative of the Romney campaign defended Weber’s work on the issue, saying his purpose was to work with Helms to make sure the money was paid to the U.N. Insisting that he is a Washington outsider, Mitt Romney has been captured on tape arguing with a reporter about whether a Washington lobbyist named Ron Kaufman runs or just advises his campaign for president. The more important issue is what Kaufman lobbies for. It turns out that Kaufman’s firm, as well as another Romney adviser, Vin Weber, have worked to put more American taxpayer dollars into the coffers of the...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney flatly declared Thursday during a stop in Columbia that he doesn't have lobbyists running his campaign. In fact, several lobbyists either work in the campaign or advise Romney and his aides. Romney's statement sparked a heated exchange with an Associated Press reporter, who challenged his truthfulness. "That's not true governor," said Glen Johnson, the AP reporter. "That is not true. Ron Kaufman's a lobbyist. How can you say that you don't have lobbyists?" Kaufman, the former White House political director for President George H.W. Bush and a lobbyist at the Dutko Group, is a senior...

Fred Thompson Release: - This is Romney's health care plan of which he claims authorship and credit. - The plan guarantees Planned Parenthood a seat at the decision-making table. - The plan provides taxpayer-funded abortions for a copay of $50. - The plan penalizes individuals not buying health insurance coverage and small businesses not offering health insurance to their employees.Romney Is Quick To Take Credit For Massachusetts' Health Care Plan - "I love it. It's a fabulous program." (GOP Primary Debate, Reagan Library, Simi Valley, CA, MSNBC, 5/3/2007) - "But I helped write it and I knew it well..." (GOP...

So we might have Myth as our nominee. We don't know yet, but lets consider that a possibility. If one rewinds time back a bit, you'll remember a vague threat from Michael Bloomberg. He warned that if an 'extremist' like Mitt Romney was the nominee, he'd consider running. As much as Michael is a liberal (and he is), he's shown to take away from Republicans slightly more than democrats. He could be a modern day Perot for the democrats, and the cash to handle an expensive campaign. Will this happen and in this particular manner? We don't know yet. Although...

10. Airlines are solely to blame for the unfriendly skies. Media myth: Blame the airlines for all those flight delays; never mind the obsolete government-run agency creating the gridlock. 9. Consumer spending is the be-all, end-all of the economy. Media myth: Without excessive consumer spending – especially at Christmastime – the U.S. economy will collapse. 8. The stock market is trouble, whether it goes up or down. Media myth: One day the stock market can’t sustain growth; the next, we’re just one drop away from another crash. 7. Anyone who ‘denies’ global warming shouldn’t be taken seriously. Media myth: Global...

Former governor Mitt Romney's economic development agency granted initial approval to a tax-exempt bond last year for a Planned Parenthood clinic in Worcester that will provide abortions, just two months before he left office and began highlighting his antiabortion position as a presidential candidate. Asked about the $5 million financial deal yesterday, the Romney campaign said the former governor was not aware it was under consideration when Planned Parenthood won preliminary approval in November 2006. Romney repeatedly used the power of his office while governor to advance socially conservative positions, including restricting stem cell research, pushing abstinence-only sex education in...

“I’ve made up my mind. Don’t confuse me with the facts.�That saying most appropriately sums up the year in climate science for the fanatic global warming crowd... Cracked crystal balls. Observed temperature changes measured over the last 30 years don’t match well with temperatures predicted by the mathematical climate models relied on by the U.N.'s IPCC, researchers reported... The big yellow ball in the sky. The Sun may have contributed 50 percent or more of the global warming thought to have occurred since 1900, according to a new historical temperature reconstruction showing more variation in pre-industrial temperatures than previously thought......

Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson is banking on conservative consistency. The former Tennessee senator presented his principals in a frank manor, pulling no punches in front on an audience of more than 75 onlookers, which spilled out of The Windrow’s back meeting room Wednesday evening. The event was one of 50 Thompson is putting on leading up to the Jan. 3 caucus. With a well-lit background draped in a large campaign poster calling Thompson the “clear conservative choice,” Iowa’s 5th District Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, introduced the senator as, “A man who will lay out the destiny of America.” Thompson...

IN THE HEADLINES Rice slams Huckabee criticism of Bush 'bunker mentality' foreign policy ... Romney rails against earmarks in budget deal ... Tancredo aide backs Thompson's candidacy ... Judge tosses out part of suit against Huckabee over Arkansas hard drives ___ Rice rejects Huckabee criticism WASHINGTON (AP) — In a brief foray into politics, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday denounced comments by Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee that the Bush administration's foreign policy is arrogant and unilateral. "The idea that somehow this is a go-it-alone policy is just simply ludicrous," she said at a State Department news conference....

Contact: Donna Ballentine, American Right To Life Action, 888-888-2785, office@ARTLAction.comMEDIA ADVISORY, Dec. 20 /Christian Newswire/ -- American Right To Life Action, a new 527 political organization, is running its first political television ad statewide in Iowa starting today and through the Iowa Caucuses on January 3, 2008. "We have tested this ad with focus groups," said Steve Curtis, president of ARTL Action, "and it has everyone laughing, laughing with us, at Mitt Romney for being such an obvious liar about the most important issue for any leader in America: abortion."Romney Fairytale ScriptOnce upon a time there was a man named Mitt...

History Upside Down The Roots of Palestinian Fascism and the Myth of Israeli Aggression DAVID MEIR-LEVI Overview Reviews Excerpt In the United Nations, on university campuses, and among a growing number of our most prestigious Western newspapers, the historical record has been rewritten so thoroughly that Israel is seen as the worst of the oppressive Western occupiers of the Third World. So successful has this campaign been that Palestinian spinmeisters and their apologists have effectively declared that the Israelis, a people living in the shadow of the Holocaust, are themselves “Nazis.” How could this happen? How did unacceptable anti-Semitism morph...

Neanderthal-human hybrid 'a myth' Monday, 10 December 2007 Jennifer Viegas Discovery News This 29,000 year old skull belonged to a hominid with slightly heavier eyebrows than an average person. But this is not enough to convince anthropologists it's evidence of a human-Neanderthal hybrid (Source: Dan Grigorescu) Did modern humans interbreed with Neanderthals and, if so, did the mating result in a half-human, half-Neanderthal hybrid? The answer is possibly 'yes' to the interbreeding but 'no' to the hybrid, according to the authors of a new study that is already making waves among anthropologists. At the centre of the study, published online...

Governor Mitt Romney's "Faith In America" Address Thursday, Dec 06, 2007 "Faith In America" Remarks As Prepared For Delivery The George Bush Presidential Library College Station, Texas December 6, 2007 "Thank you, Mr. President, for your kind introduction. "It is an honor to be here today. This is an inspiring place because of you and the First Lady and because of the film exhibited across the way in the Presidential library. For those who have not seen it, it shows the President as a young pilot, shot down during the Second World War, being rescued from his life-raft by...

In the race for the Republican Presidential Nomination, Mike Huckabee retains a three-point edge with support from 21% of Likely Republican Primary Voters nationwide while Rudy Giuliani is the top choice for 18%. Mitt Romney earns 12% while Fred Thompson and John McCain each attract 11% (see recent daily numbers). Five candidates are within ten points of the lead and all five could conceivably become the party’s eventual nominee. Ron Paul is the only other candidate with measurable support and he currently attracts 8% of Likely Republican Primary voters nationwide. New data released today shows that Huckabee is the new...

Is global warming a myth? Yes 47.2% No 52.8% Total votes: 811

I-Team: Expert trying to identify mysterious bird flying around S. Texas Web Posted: 11/16/2007 12:42 AM CST Joe Conger KENS 5 Eyewitness News More sightings of a huge flying creature, originally reported by KENS, have prompted an investigation to determine if it is a monster or myth. "Even though it was dark, the thing itself was black. The blackest I'd ever seen," said Frank Ramirez.

Forget the conventional wisdom. U.S. schools are turning out more capable science and engineering grads than the job market can support. Political leaders, tech executives, and academics often claim that the U.S. is falling behind in math and science education. They cite poor test results, declining international rankings, and decreasing enrollment in the hard sciences. They urge us to improve our education system and to graduate more engineers and scientists to keep pace with countries such as India and China. Yet a new report by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, tells a different story. The report disproves many...

MI5 says Saudi king's 7/7 claim is 'a myth' By Robert Winnett and James Kirkup Last Updated: 9:03pm GMT 29/10/2007 The intelligence services have become embroiled in a rare public row with the Saudi government by describing comments about the 7/7 London bombings made by the Saudi king as a "myth". King Abdullah, currently on a state visit to Britain, said in an interview that his country had "sent information before the terrorist attacks" which was not acted upon and which "may have been able to avert the tragedy". King Abdullah accepted that al-Qa'eda remains a problem in his country...

Global Warming: No Match for the Coming Ice Age According to Dr. Mark McMenamin of Mt. Holyoke College... [G]laciers are going to move down and grind New York into the North Atlantic ocean.    How the Earth was MadeA brand new two-hour documentary, How the Earth was Made, is now showing on The History Channel.  Be sure to catch it if you can, because it is the best of its kind I've ever seen.  [Link is at the bottom of this article.]Most of the program is a chronological exposition of earth's 4.5 billion year history, pieced together by generations of...

Myths of British ancestry October 2006Stephen Oppenheimer Everything you know about British and Irish ancestry is wrong. Our ancestors were Basques, not Celts. The Celts were not wiped out by the Anglo-Saxons, in fact neither had much impact on the genetic stock of these islands The fact that the British and the Irish both live on islands gives them a misleading sense of security about their unique historical identities. But do we really know who we are, where we come from and what defines the nature of our genetic and cultural heritage? Who are and were the Scots, the Welsh,...

Myth: The president refuses to admit that climate change is real and that humans are a factor. Myth: The U.S. is doing nothing to address climate change. Myth: The United States refuses to engage internationally. So begins a hand-sized handout, easy for reporters to pocket, issued at the State Department where President Bush on Friday was to cap two days of talks at a White House-sponsored climate change conference that is as much about salesmanship as it is about diplomacy. Unwilling to cut U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases, which make up a fourth of the world's total output, Bush is...

I think the proper question should be Is Human caused Global Warming a myth? The planet is in a warming cycle as opposed to a couple of centuries ago.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's closest adviser and architect of the New Deal, Harry Hopkins, advised, "Tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect, because the people are too damn dumb to know the difference." Professor Bryan Caplan, my colleague at George Mason University, sheds some light on Hopkins' observation in his new book, "The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies." Caplan is far more generous than Hopkins. Instead, he says people harbor economic biases, several of which he discusses. There's the anti-market bias, the failure to believe that market forces determine prices. Many believe that...

Until proven, a myth: Historians CHARU SUDAN KASTURI & SUDESHNA BANERJEE New Delhi/Calcutta, Sept. 12: Ram cannot be considered a historical figure despite references in ancient literature because crucial material evidence to authenticate his existence has not been found, historians have said. “A textual reference necessarily needs to be corroborated by inscriptions engraved in stone or other long-lasting material or by archaeological evidence,” said Nayanjot Lahiri, professor of ancient history at Delhi University. Until such evidence is found, a character or event in texts or literature is considered mythological, historians said. Historians have traced the original texts of the Mahabharata...

"What would the Maestro do?" As nervous markets hang on every word of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, trying to divine whether he will lower interest rates in response to the current turmoil in credit markets, comparisons to his illustrious predecessor Alan Greenspan are inevitable. Such comparisons can also be invidious, and shouldn't influence what Mr. Bernanke does now. Mr. Greenspan is fondly remembered for his role in stewarding markets through the stock crash of 1987, the Long Term Capital Management crisis of 1998, the collapse of the tech bubble in early 2001, and the aftermath of the terrorist attacks...

Bryan Caplan, of George Mason University and blogger at EconLog, talks about his book, The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. Caplan argues that democracies work well in giving voters what they want but unfortunately, what voters want isn't particularly wise, especially when it comes to economic policy. He outlines a series of systematic biases we often have on economic topics and explains why we have little or no incentive to improve our understanding of the world and vote wisely. So, it's not special interests that are messing things up but the very incentives that lie...

Myths of Evolution - Part 2 Some may be shocked to find that long-heralded “proofs” of evolution are anything but. Here we examine four widely used examples to learn what the evidence really shows. by Mario Seiglie As we saw in the first part of this series in the last issue, Charles Darwin presented in his book, The Origin of Species, what he thought were numerous examples from the animal world to support his theory of evolution. But do they? Let's examine some other supposed proofs and see how well they have fared some 150 years later. Pigeon breeding: artificial...

Democrats in and out of the media are crying foul over what they see as a nefarious Bush White House plot to artificially bump up its standing by rewriting a report from general David Petraeus on the state of things in Iraq. Trouble is, the administration is required by law to write it: In the past few weeks we've heard that the White House won't let Petraeus speak. Then we've heard that he'll only provide input to the September 15th Benchmark report, and the White House will then spin that. I had the opportunity today to talk with a DoD...