Free Republic

The State Department recognized Porfirio Lobo's victory in Sunday's election but said the Honduran Congress still needed to vote on the restoration of deposed President Manuel Zelaya and form a government of national unity. "While the election is a significant step in Honduras' return to the democratic and constitutional order ... it's only a step and it's not the last step," said Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela. Before the election, the United States tried and failed to have Zelaya reinstated. Its support of the election upset many Latin American nations, including powerful Brazil, which called...

The racing yacht, the Kingdom Of Bahrain, owned by Sail Bahrain and crewed by the five Britons, was stopped by Iranian naval vessels last Wednesday as it sailed from Bahrain to Dubai. The crew members are still in Iran and are understood to be safe and well. Their families have been informed. The Foreign Office said the yacht might have "inadvertently" strayed into Iranian waters. The sailors were heading to Dubai to join the Dubai-Muscat Offshore Sailing Race. One of the men onboard has been named as David Bloomer, believed to be a radio presenter in Bahrain. A source later...

This week is the last in the life of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) that was signed on July 31, 1991 by Presidents George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev. This most complex treaty in the history of arms control expires on December 5, and the simple solution of extending its duration was rejected by Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev as unhelpful for the broader agenda of nuclear non-proliferation. Seeking to give substance to the idea of a “reset” in US-Russian relations, the two leaders committed last July to the “joint understanding” for a follow-on treaty, thus setting an...

On one level, the vote to ban minarets in Switzerland is a triviality. The constitutional amendment does not ban mosques, it does not pull down the country’s four existing minarets, nor does touch the practice of Islam in Switzerland or bear on the many issues concerning Swiss Muslims. In all likelihood, the political establishment in Bern, which abominates the amendment, will find some way to overturn it. But on another level, the 57.5 to 42.5 percent vote represents a possible turning point for European Islam, one comparable to the Rushdie affair of 1989. That a large majority of those Swiss...

The world has changed; but China has not. China has responded to the world financial crisis with what seems to be great success. But this is an illusion. China’s solution – a surge in spending on investment – will create greater excess capacity. China’s high-savings, high-investment economy is costly for its people and destabilising for the world. The time for a radical reform is long past. In a disturbing new report, the European Chamber of Commerce in China lays out the challenge in six sectors: aluminium, where the capacity utilisation rate is forecast to be 67 per cent in 2009;...

Seattle, Washington (CNN) -- Investigators searching for the suspected killer of four Seattle-area police officers have rounded up several of his relatives and friends to keep them from helping him escape, a sheriff's spokesman said Monday. Police have brought in five or six relatives and other acquaintances of Maurice Clemmons, "and we expect that number to grow," Pierce County Sheriff's Department spokesman Ed Troyer said. Some of Clemmons' family and friends have been trying to help him elude police and seek treatment for a gunshot wound, and they have tried to divert investigators by calling in false leads, he said....

14 reasons Obama's love of Wall Street will trigger the Great Depression 2. First: Kiss the rally good-bye, says Jeremy Grantham... Why? The market is overvalued 25%. A minimum 15% correction is coming in 2010, putting the Dow in the 8,000-9,000 range. The S&P 500? Not at 666 like last spring; maybe 800. America has "learned nothing," we are "condemning ourselves to another serious financial crisis in the not too-distant future." Obama gets failing grade in behavioral economics . 1. Obama's shift into 'predictably irrational' economics. If Grantham ever was a fan, he's clearly disillusioned with the president. His 14...

I'd rather not know: the psychology of climate denialPARIS, Dec 1 (AFP) Dec 01, 2009 If the evidence is overwhelming that man-made climate change is already upon us and set to wreak planetary havoc, why do so many people refuse to believe it? The UN's panel of climate scientists, in a landmark report, described the proof of global warming as "unequivocal." That was two years ago, and since then hundreds of other studies have pointed to an ever-bleaker future, with a potential loss of life numbering in the tens of millions, if not more. Yet survey after survey from around...

November 30, 2009 State Dinner Crashers Snuck In to Black Caucus Dinner FOXNews.com The Salahis attended a recent awards dinner without an invitation, and multiple sources told MyFoxDC.com they snuck in to the event through an entrance meant for bus boys and caterers. Less than a week after their appearance at the White House State Dinner, Michaele and Tareq Salahi have some more explaining to do. Representatives from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation say the couple also attended their recent awards dinner without an invitation, and multiple sources told MyFoxDC.com they snuck in to the event through an entrance meant...

A UN investigation has concluded that North Korea is continuing to export weapons, and using the hard currency obtained to import luxury items for the ruling elite of the communist police state. The UN report detailed North Korean use of false documents and the switching of cargo containers to different ships to throw off investigators. The North Koreans have also had to come up with a large array of subterfuges to get around growing restrictions on their use of the international banking system. The North Koreans are still getting the weapons out, and the money back. But they are increasingly...

Desperately Seeking Freedom Are the number of immigrants seeking asylum over sexual-orientation discrimination increasing? By Krista Gesaman | Newsweek Web Exclusive Nov 30, 2009 Luiz enjoys cooking family dinners for a small household in New York City. He works as an au pair and cares for a 13-year-old boy who constantly urges him to play videogames. Luiz values the tranquility of his life today, most especially that he can now live openly as a gay man. Eight years ago, Luiz was living in his native Brazil and keeping his sexuality a secret. One evening in 2001, Luiz (who asked NEWSWEEK...

Australia’s main opposition Liberal party appointed a climate change sceptic as its leader on Tuesday in a move that all but kills plans by Kevin Rudd, primer minister, to have an emissions trading scheme passed into law ahead of the Copenhagen climate change summit. Tony Abbott ousted Malcolm Turnbull to become Australia’s fourth leader of the Liberal party in just over two years but only after securing 42 votes against Mr Turnbull’s 41. Mr Abbott, who earlier this year said the argument for climate change “is absolute crap”, used his first press conference to take on Mr Rudd’s Labor government...

The Tory blogger on what caused his climate change epiphany – after two decades of believing that humans were to blameA couple of weeks ago there was a lively online exchange between Douglas Carswell, the MP for Harwich and Clacton and fast-rising voice within the Conservative party, and Bob Ward, the policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Ward had responded to a post on Carswell's blog – recently judged to be among the top 10 Tory blogs – in which the MP...

[Editor’s Introduction: Dissent among university students has long been a top source of concern for China’s ruling authorities. On October 31st China's education minister Zhou Ji was demoted amid widespread dissatisfaction with the system. That day China Central Television reported "eight malpractices in China's educational sector" including school enrollment favoring the wealthy, arbitrary fees, rampant plagiarism, and huge resources allocated to a few students to achieve high exam scores. Meanwhile, in the official Nanfang Daily’s self-evaluation poll this week Guangzhou officials in charge of education awarded themselves 98 out of 100 points, while counterparts from nearby cities, including Shenzhen, gave...

State Dinner Crashers Exchanged E-Mails With Pentagon Official The special assistant to the Secretary of Defense, who was appointed by Obama, said she clearly stated in correspondence with the couple that she could not extend any kind of invitation. By Josh Meyer and Peter Nicholas November 30, 2009 Reporting from Washington - As Congress prepares to examine how a Virginia couple crashed the first state dinner of the Obama administration, the pair may be pointing to e-mail correspondence they had with a senior Pentagon official as evidence that they were invited guests after all. Federal authorities say Tareq and Michaele...

A South Korean navy ship has rescued a North Korean soldier whose boat drifted into southern waters across the Yellow Sea border, officials said Monday. Security authorities have been questioning the soldier since he was rescued Sunday, a defence ministry spokesman told AFP. The outcome of the investigation would be disclosed later. The soldier said his boat went adrift while he was fishing and asked investigators to send him back to North Korea, Yonhap news agency reported. He will be returned later this week through the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarised Zone which bisects the peninsula, it said....

Israel is sticking to its guns on a demand the United States allow it to integrate its own electronic warfare suite in Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, even though the Americans have given the green light to install other Israeli systems in the jet. Israel wants to buy an initial batch of 25 F-35s, enough for one squadron, in fiscal 2012 and would like to acquire another 50. The U.S. Department of Defense and Maryland-based Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor in the program, want to finalize a contract with Israel as soon as possible. The main holdup has been...

The couple who crashed the Obama administration's first state dinner communicated with a senior Pentagon official about going to the event, but the official denies that she helped the couple get in. Michele Jones, a special assistant to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, said in a written statement issued through the White House on Monday evening that she never said or implied she would get Michaele and Tareq Salahi into the Nov. 24 White House dinner. "I specifically stated that they did not have tickets and in fact that I did not have the authority to authorize attendance, admittance or access...

Will Obama Throw Desiree Rogers Under the Bus for State Dinner Fiasco?Obama State Dinner Fiasco - Will Desiree Rogers Get Thrown Under the Bus? (Part Two woth video)A bombshell claim by a friend of Michaele Salahi last night on Larry King Live could end up blowing White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers out of the East Wing and under the Obama bus of discarded friends and associates.Politico reported on what was said on Larry King Live:As far as I know, they were invited," said Teresa Foss-Conlan, one of three Salahi friends who appeared on King's CNN show Monday night after...

Pedal-powered Christmas tree lights CopenhagenBy Martin LaMonica, CNET News.com Tuesday, December 01, 2009 01:00 PM When you're the host city for international climate change negotiations, using energy-efficient LED lights on the Christmas tree apparently isn't enough. The traditional Christmas tree in Copenhagen's City Hall Square will be powered by people, rather than a distant power plant. The square has been equipped with 15 bicycles which, when pedaled, light up the 700 LED bulbs on the tree. The 17-meter-high tree went up last week during an opening ceremony in which Saint Nicholas climbed a fire truck ladder to the top of...

At West Point tonight, when Barack Obama formally announces he is sending tens of thousands more American troops to Afghanistan, he’ll be doing so against the wishes of an overwhelming majority of the Democratic Party. Sending more troops will fulfill a key Obama campaign pledge, but it will also expose a deep rift in the party — and highlight its habit of dissembling on the war. A Gallup poll last week asked Americans about four possible options in Afghanistan. Would they prefer to see the number of U.S. troops increased by 40,000, as top military commanders proposed? Would they prefer...

Hear the Solicitor General squirm as she flails for reasons to uphold a ban on corporate campaign finance expenditures. The SCOTUS granted a motion for re-argument last summer, which it rarely does. Scalia and Roberts were on fire. One of Sotomayor's first cases! This case has it all. McConnell's lawyer, McCain's lawyer, Ted Olson, the Sol. Gen.! Seriously though, my law professor thinks this part of McCain-Feingold is going down in flames thanks to Hillary the Movie. The case will be coming down probably in early 2010.

In short, the CRU dumped the scientific data, but archived information that supports its conclusions. "It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years,"... The publication of these e-mails puts an end to that happy conceit, as they reveal a small cabal of scientists obsessed with obliterating dissenting scholarship and destroying the reputations of any who stood in their way.For years, I've read global warming activists cite the work of UC San Diego science historian Naomi Oreskes, who looked at 928 abstracts of peer-reviewed...

About the strikingly successful proofs of Einstein’s “risky” or “counter-intuitive” predictions based on the relativity theorems, Karl Popper (http://www.geocities.com/healthbase/falsification.html) observed: “Now the impressive thing about this case is the risk involved in a prediction of this kind. If observation shows that the predicted effect is definitely absent, then the theory is simply refuted. The theory is incompatible with certain possible results of observation, in fact with results which everybody before Einstein would have expected. This is quite different from the situation I have previously described, when it turned out that the theories in question were compatible with the most divergent...

If Sarah Palin runs for president in 2012, can she win? Pundits have been buzzing about the possibility since the release of her book two weeks ago, and the itinerary and politics of her book tour suggest she hasn't ruled out a bid. Palin has said she "cannot predict what doors will be open in 2012," but can recent polling provide an answer? Can Palin Win a General Election? Ultimately, the potential for any Republican in 2012 will depend on voters' future assessments of President Obama. But even if he is vulnerable, Palin will face some huge obstacles, as the...

(2nd LD) N. Korea revalues currency for first time in 17 yrs: sources By Kim Hyun SHENYANG, China/SEOUL, Dec. 1 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has sharply raised the value of its currency, its first such move in 17 years, in an apparent bid to tackle inflation and curb black market trading, sources said Tuesday. North Korean sources who engage in trade with China in the eastern Chinese city of Shenyang told Yonhap News Agency that the North Korean government implemented the currency reform as of 11 a.m. Monday and the exchange for the new currency began at 2 p.m. Data...

A former city electrical contractor walked out of a Manhattan court all smiles Monday after a judge gave him just three months in jail for bribing a corrupt union boss. Santo Petrocelli Sr. told a federal judge he paid $30,000 to $70,000 in 2004 to Brian McLaughlin, the former head of the New York City Central Labor Council, and loaned him. Petrocelli's company, Petrocelli Electric Company, won millions in city streetlight contracts.

A former city electrical contractor walked out of a Manhattan court all smiles Monday after a judge gave him just three months in jail for bribing a corrupt union boss. Santo Petrocelli Sr. told a federal judge he paid $30,000 to $70,000 in 2004 to Brian McLaughlin, the former head of the New York City Central Labor Council, and loaned him. Petrocelli's company, Petrocelli Electric Company, won millions in city streetlight contracts.

As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid struggles to pass a health care bill in Washington and his polling numbers in Nevada continue to tank, there’s another aggravation he can’t seem to escape — the Las Vegas Review-Journal and its publisher, Sherman Frederick. Frederick has called Reid a “political corpse,� said a visit by President Barack Obama to Nevada earlier this year “was only to try to stop Nevadans from bouncing their unpopular senior Sen. Harry Reid in 2010� and suggested that “Reid’s power so far has done more for Reid personally than it has for Nevadans as a whole.�...

President Obama's climate czar, Carol M. Browner, claims that Climategate is not important and that global warming is settled science. "[The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has] been studying this issue for a very long time and agree this problem is real," she said last week, six days after the scandal first broke about fudged global-warming research. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs repeated the claim yesterday. This obtuseness exposes the Obama administration's complicity in aiding and abetting the fraud involved to stir up climate-change hysteria. Responsibility for continuing to perpetuate this scandal goes all the way to the top....

www.catholicnewsagency.com N.J. bishops encourage faithful to stand up for marriage Archbishop John Myers of Newark / Bishop William Skurla of Passaic Newark, N.J., Nov 30, 2009 / 07:31 pm (CNA).- The New Jersey bishops asked pastors to read a statement to their parishioners last weekend which explained the Catholic Church's teaching on marriage and encouraged the faithful to pray that New Jersey will not pass a same-sex “marriage” measure.  Same-sex “marriage” advocates are working to put the bill before the current governor who has promised to sign it before he leaves office in January. His successor has promised to...

SEATTLE (AP) - Authorities believe the man sought in the slaying of four police officers is still alive and has been aided by a network of friends and family, a police spokesman said Monday night. Officers believe Maurice Clemmons was shot in the abdomen during the attack on the officers at a Parkland coffee shop, and had speculated he might have died. But Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff, said investigators have questioned several people who had provided assistance to Clemmons since the Sunday morning shootings.

The Environment Agency will argue today that carbon rationing is the fairest and most effective way for the UK to meet its legally binding targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The Agency’s chairman, Lord Smith, will propose at the organisation's annual conference in London that every citizen be provided with a "carbon account" and unique number that they submit when buying carbon-intensive items such as petrol, electricity or airline tickets. Individuals would then periodically receive statements that show the carbon impact of each purchase and how much of their annual ration has been used up. If they exceeded this ration,...

Furious bondholders have arranged emergency talks with Dubai officials this week in an effort to get some clarity on the financial health of the state-owned company Dubai World, which caused widespread panic on world markets last week when it asked creditors for a six-month standstill on debt repayments. A conference call has been organised by the New York-based hedge fund QVT Financial, after an attempt last week was abandoned when the telephone system collapsed under the weight of calls. Investors are angry that the announcement was made at the start of the Islamic Eid and US Thanksgiving holidays, leaving them...

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) urged US President Barack Obama to use his upcoming address at the U. Military Academy at West Point to speak out against the decision, calling it a move that is "a violation of religious freedom and a breach of international law."

No no, just kidding: There’s no “maybe” here. On the contrary, he blithely asserts that “there’s no question about it,” which precipitates the first and likely last defense of George W. Bush ever mounted by David Shuster. But then, this is the same guy who once claimed that Karl Rove planted the phony memos that destroyed Dan Rather’s career, who called for nationalizing America’s oil industry, and who thought it’d be super-keen to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. Chock full o’ good ideas, he is; it was only a matter of time before he stumbled across this one.

Not only did they pose for a previous photo with Barack Obama, one of them, Tareq Salahi, has ties to some of the same radical Arab interests that backed Obama. WorldNetDaily reports that Tareq Salahi served on the board of the American Task Force for Palestine (ATFP), where Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi served as vice president. Khalidi was a close friend and associate of Obama. Judi McLeod of the Canada Free Press has a Google cache identifying Tareq Salahi as a member of the ATFP. Amid all the questions about the actions of the Salahis, it must also be...

The world has emitted extra greenhouse gases this century equivalent to the annual totals of China and the United States above a maximum for avoiding the worst of climate change, a study estimated on Tuesday. Global accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers said in the report that almost all major nations, including European Union countries that pride themselves on climate policies, were lagging since 2000 in a push for low-carbon growth. It said the world was already far above a "budget" of total emissions of 1,300 billion tons of carbon dioxide from 2000-50 which it estimated as the maximum permissible while avoiding the...

In Paris, a spokesman for the French foreign ministry refused to confirm or deny the report, which said US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the request on Thursday in a telephone call to French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Mrs Clinton spoke by telephone with Mr Kouchner on Thursday but gave no details other than that he was one of many allies she called about coordinating efforts in Afghanistan. Besides Kouchner, Mr Kelly said, Mrs Clinton also spoke late last week with her counterparts from Poland, Canada, Italy, South Korea, Netherlands, Spain,...

Pendleton 8 Excerpts from a recent American Grand Jury Internet BlogTalk provides first hand descriptions of the plight of the Pendleton 8, (7 marines and a navy corpsman) plight. Illegally treated by the same government, whose orders they were following, these US service personal were robbed of the due process to which they were entitled. It was noted that a higher level of legal representation was afforded the war criminals (terrorists) captured on the battle field.

Last week, Charlie Crist decided to attack conservatives by telling reporters that “It’s hard to be more conservative than I am on issues — there’s different ways stylistically to communicate that — I’m pro-life, I’m pro-gun, I’m pro-family, and I’m anti-tax,” then went on to say he guessed he just wasn’t angry enough. In the DNC - McClatchy News hit job of Jim DeMint and me, the one where the reporter and DNC dutifully compare me to Rev. Wright, the John Cornyn’s National Republican Senatorial Committee dutifully got in on the fun parroting Charlie Crist. “Charlie Crist is pro-life, pro-gun...

Buried in the depths of page 26 of the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program's (SIGTARP's) November 17, 2009 report "Factors Affecting Efforts to Limit Payments to AIG Counterparties" hidden in footnotes 33 and 34 is something of a mystery. It might be the beginning of an interconnected financial chain involving Dubai, the Federal Reserve, AIG, Basel I, Eastern Europe and even Switzerland and which, even if it doesn't worry you, probably should. Or it might be nothing at all. Consider first "footnote 33," that reads as follows: The first Basel Accord, known as...

"There was e-mail correspondence confirming they were legitimately supposed to be there," said Casey Margenau, a close friend of the couple. "They understood they were invited." "I did not state at any time, or imply that I had tickets for ANY portion of the evening's events," Jones said in a statement released by the White House late Monday. "I specifically stated that they did not have tickets and in fact that I did not have the authority to authorize attendance, admittance or access to any part of the evening's activities. Even though I informed them of this, they still decided...

Van Jones, President Obama's controversial former "green jobs" czar, serves on the advisory board of an independent environmental organization actively working with the White House, WND has learned. Jones resigned in September after it was exposed he founded a communist revolutionary organization and signed a statement that accused the Bush administration of possible involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Jones is one of 20 advisers to the University of Colorado-based Presidential Climate Action Project, or PCAP, which draws up climate policy recommendations for the White House and has been working with members of the Obama administration. The PCAP last September released...

Democratic Rep. John Murtha — just back from a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan — said Monday that he never got a clear definition of what constitutes an “achievable victory” for the United States and fears that American commanders are assuming more time for the war effort than voters at home will allow. “I am still very nervous about this whole thing,” Murtha told POLITICO. “If you had 10 years, it might work; if you had five, you could make a difference. But you don’t have that long.” A top Democrat on military matters, the Pennsylvania lawmaker captures the skepticism facing...

For a second time, the supplies of pink paper have been wiped out across North America by a true grass-roots campaign to send pink slips to members of Congress, warning them against support for the health-care takeover, big spending, hate-crimes legislation and energy taxes. WND got notification today of the shortage – which already is being resolved – from the printer of pink slips that have been streaming into Capitol Hill by the millions. The latest count was more than 8 million. "The WND pink slip campaign has wiped out ALL Hammermill pink paper supplies in North America," said a...

While reviewing a book about the financial crisis, a policy analyst of the free-market persuasion pooh-poohed the notion that housing constitutes a long-term project or "higher-order good," insisting that homes are instead a "durable consumer good," and thus he believes that examining the housing meltdown through the lens of Austrian business-cycle theory is illegitimate. This discussion was had many times as the housing boom raged on mid-decade. When the boom continued longer than many thought possible the question became, Why is there no bust? Maybe houses are the equivalent of big refrigerators. Maybe home prices can go up forever. After...

Documents released this morning by the Arkansas Parole Board show police slaying suspect Maurice Clemmons was supposed to remain in prison there until at least 2015, but won his release by claiming he'd changed while behind bars. Clemmons' appeal for clemency was granted in May 2000 by then-Gov. Mike Huckabee, who commuted Clemmons sentence and made him immediately eligible for parole. Clemmons wrote in an appeal to Huckabee that he'd been sent to prison after an extended crime spree that started in 1989 when he was a teenager — and that he was a different person now. At the time...

Growing up in Kuwait, I had the best of everything. My father owned a successful construction company, and provided us five children with amenities like piano lessons, swimming, calligraphy and trips all over the world. Although we were Muslims like everyone else, we were totally secular and my father always aimed to shield us from religious people whom he described as crazies. I grew up being told that Israelis and Jews were the lowest type of creature in existence, put on Earth only to kill us Arabs. In math class the teacher would say, “If one rocket killed X number...

Hezbollah's chief on Monday announced the group's new "manifesto," which calls on all countries to "liberate Jerusalem" and declares the United States a threat to the world. "American terrorism is the source of every terrorism in the world," Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech from an undisclosed location. It was his first address since a unity government formed in Lebanon this month, ending a crisis that had left the country with no government since June's parliamentary elections. Hezbollah, a political party in Lebanon, is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and Israel. Nasrallah does not appear...