Free Republic

Today is the Environmental Protection Agency’s 40th birthday. Thank you Richard Nixon: you left us a heck of a legacy on this one. The media is sure to tout the remarkable environmental progress in the United States over the past 40 years, and indeed we have never had cleaner air, cleaner water, or more plentiful wildlife. By any objective measure, environmental progress has been remarkable over the past 40 years, but it was also remarkable for decades before the creation of the EPA, and indeed every advanced economy has seen dramatic environmental improvement, regardless of its regulatory model.

Last night in front of an audience of hundreds at a presentation at the University of Southern California, TV personality Bill Nye — popularly known as the "Science Guy" — collapsed midsentence as he walked toward a podium. Early indications are that Nye is OK, but what's odd about the incident isn't so much Nye's slight health setback as the crowd's reaction. Or, more precisely, its nonreaction, according to several accounts. It appears that the students in attendance, rather than getting up from their seats to rush to Nye's aid, instead pulled out their mobile devices to post information about...

Ray Stevens - Throw the Bums Out

The tick-tocking sound in Afghanistan is time running out for Team America - and the enemy knows it. It's not only Beltway pundits who have picked over the fine points of President Obama's fuzzy July 2011 Afghan troop withdrawal target date, it's the Taliban, too, from Kabul to Kandahar and Khyber to Karachi. Never mind that Obama and Army Gen. David Petraeus have hedged on that date, promising any pullouts will be "conditions based."

U.S. taxpayers gave $300 billion to bail out U.S. banks, which ultimately helped rescue foreign banks in a globalized system.

PATERSON, N.J. (AP) -- Police say a man attending a block party as part of the National Night Out anti-crime initiative was shot and killed in New Jersey's third-largest city. Paterson police say 39-year-old Robert Godfrey was shot in the head while arguing with another man on a crowded street Tuesday.

Pete FerronThe Shrugging Out Podcast Pete Ferron conducts an excellent, extended, three-part interview with the founder of Generational Dynamics, John Xenakis, and makes it available to you for free direct listening or download.Interview with Generational Dynamics’ John Xenakis: Part 1Part 2Part 3 After you’ve enjoyed Pete’s interview with John Xenakis, catch Pete’s insightful commentary about the interview:Commentary

Gawker may be the last place you'd expect to see writers expressing righteous indignation over ethical breaches, particularly journalistic ones. But on Wednesday, the site's Hamilton Nolan slammed Lavender Magazinefor outing anti-gay Minneapolis pastor Tom Brock as a gay man. Lavender's sin, according to Nolan, was not about pulling back the curtain on hypocrisy, which has come to be considered justified over the years, but that the reporter went undercover to a 12-step meeting of gay men to get the story.

He has already missed his own self-imposed deadline, and President Obama's plans to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, suffered more setbacks last week when lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol took steps to block him. On Friday the full House voted 282-131 to prevent Mr. Obama from transferring any of the detainees being held at Guantanamo to the United States, while the Senate Armed Services Committee passed a bill Thursday stopping Mr. Obama from buying a new prison to house the detainees.

The Shrugging Out Podcast - Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - Episode 11: Is it seditious to shrug out?Podcaster and host Pete Ferron starts out by blasting Time columnist Joe Klein's charge that Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin's recent statements are seditious, or as the elitist Klein puts it, "rubbing up against it [sedition]". This makes Pete sing--literally--Sedition...Sedition! Shrugging Out is all over the news!!! Reality-based New Jersey Governor Chris Christie provides mega-doses of reality to the temporarily-chastened boobs responsible for putting New Jersey into the deep hole it's in today. Thomas Sowell channels the "Shrugging Out Philosophy" by exploring the...

If pro is opposite of con, then what is the opposite of progress? Congress!

A few months ago I decided to write my memoirs, a project I knew was going to bring me closer to an amazing turning point in my life. From the moment I wrote the first phrase I was sure the book was the tool that was going to help me free myself from things I was carrying within me for a long time. Things that were too heavy for me to keep inside. Writing this account of my life, I got very close to my truth. And thisis something worth celebrating. For many years, there has been only one place...

As a gesture to all of the traitors that screwed over the United States of America last night, I propose the following: Place a piece of bread in your toaster. "Cook" it until it is charred black. Place charred toast in a suitable envelope. Mail said envelope to your representative in DC. They'll get the message.....

Christian teacher told today how he lost his job after complaining that Muslim pupils as young as eight hailed the September 11 hijackers as 'heroes'. Nicholas Kafouris said he was forced from his £30,000-a-year post because he would not tolerate the 'racist' and 'anti-Semitic' behaviour of children. He said the predominantly Muslim youngsters openly praised Islamic extremists in class, and hailed the terrorists of the 2001 atrocities as 'martyrs'. Mr Kafouris, 40, told how one pupil said to him, ‘Don’t touch me, you’re a Christian’, when the teacher accidentally brushed against him with his arm. Others said, ‘We want to...

Senator Phil Scott Announces His Candidacy for Lieutenant Governor

EN ROUTE TO OSHKOSH, Wis., Nov. 12, 2009 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today condemned a spate of leaks regarding both the Afghanistan strategy deliberations and last week's shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, threatening to fire anyone in the Defense Department he finds is involved. "I am appalled by the amount of leaking that has been going on," Gates told reporters traveling with him today in the wake of media reports following yesterday's national security session on Afghanistan, President Barack Obama's eighth in the past two months. Gates said he has little doubt that some of those leaks have...

(IsraelNN.com) The self-proclaimed pro-Israel J Street lobby opened its nationwide conference this week, trying to survive a growing tide of American Jews who oppose its anti-Israeli government policies. Speaking at the opening of its three-day conference this week in Washington, the group's director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, declared that J Street is “defining support for the creation of a Palestinian state as a core pro-Israel position.” He claimed wide backing for its policies despite the boycott of the conference by Michael Oren, the Israel Ambassador to Washington. Also absent were dozens of Congress members, concerned with the organization’s pro-Arab position and its...

Espn's commentators tell politicians to govern and worry about our troops, the economy, etc and stay the heck out of football...

I know what she is trying to do. She wants to channel Jackie O, but she comes across as a Walmart wannabe. Is this the best her staff of 20+ clucking hens can come up with? Her every outfit is progressively worse and her "Jackie O on the Shortbus" look is not catching on. Is America rushing to imitate the trends of the first lady? NO. Are women's fashions showing up with belts worn under the bosom? NO. Are trendy stores introducing a line of Fabulous Fall MO clothing? NO. Its time to come out and say it. Michelle, your...

WASHINGTON (AP) - General Motors has quit working with a partnership that collects toxic parts from scrapped automobiles, jeopardizing an effort to prevent mercury pollution just as hundreds of thousands of clunkers are headed to recyclers. Participants in the environmental program told The Associated Press the timing of GM's departure could hurt their work. The government's "cash-for-clunkers" program will lead to trade-in and recycling of an estimated 750,000 vehicles, some of which contain mercury switches.