Free Republic

As California goes, so goes the country. Do you remember when these words were proudly spoken by champions of populist democracy determined to make California the model for national progress? From public education to universal healthcare to labor-friendly workplace laws to progressive taxation to environmental leadership, Californians were going to show the rest of us backward Americans what happens when Power to The People becomes more than just a slogan. Could anyone ask for a better environment in which to test this muscular model of democracy? And what a test it was as Californians pioneered the ballot initiative to make...

The first 100 days of President Barack Obama’s administration officially begin today (Wednesday). But the reality is that President Obama already has a solid head start, as he and his advisor have been working for months to establish the groundwork for one of the most ambitious - and most important - economic-stimulus plans in U.S. history.President Obama’s team was hard at work weeks before his Jan. 20 inauguration, crafting an ambitious $825 billion economic stimulus plan, parlaying with the U.S. Treasury Department and Congress to ensure its speedy implementation, and assembling the team the nation’s 44th chief executive felt...

Ignorance to Ruin Bisotun's Inscription By Soudabeh Sadigh Lack of funding and general ignorance by cultural heritage authorities is to destroy the inscription of Bisotun. Tehran, 16 October 2006 (CHN) -- Studies conducted by the executive committee of Bisotun world heritage site revealed the existence of several springs inside the mountain on which several ancient reliefs and friezes including an inscription denoted to Darius the Great, the Achaemenid king, have been carved, posing serious threats to this archeological site. This is while Iran's Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (ICHTO) has not yet considered any budget to protect these historic evidences....

Grape glut leaves vineyards facing ruin By Nick Squires in Sydney (Filed: 07/06/2006) Hundreds of Australian vineyards are facing ruin amid a glut of grapes that has left the industry producing far more wine than it can sell at home or overseas. The problem is so severe that the industry said yesterday that it will take a multi-million pound government bail-out to save smaller producers from going out of business. The popularity of Australian wine in Britain and America, coupled with generous government tax breaks, encouraged a craze for establishing vineyards from the late 1990s. The Wine Grape Growers' Council...

According to the Treasury Department, from 1776-2000, the first 224 years of U.S. history, 42 U.S. presidents borrowed a combined $1.01 trillion from foreign governments and financial institutions, but in the past four years alone, the Bush administration borrowed $1.05 trillion. ... "No American political leadership has ever willfully and deliberately mortgaged our country to foreign interests in the manner we have witnessed over the past four years," said Tanner. "If this recklessness is not stopped, I truly believe our economic freedom as American citizens is in great jeopardy." [CNSNews] I wonder if there are any implications... "The facts are...

Return To New Orleans Is Urged Mayor Travels Louisiana to Tout Work, Housing By Peter Whoriskey and Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, October 13, 2005; Page A01 ALEXANDRIA, La., Oct. 12 -- Amid fears that the effort to repopulate New Orleans is stalling, Mayor C. Ray Nagin hopscotched shelters across the state Wednesday to assure Hurricane Katrina evacuees that the city is beginning to operate again and urged them to "come on home." For the charismatic first-term politician, it was a novel kind of political campaign: not for votes necessarily, but for voters themselves. It is a...

New National Geographic/Zelitsky Expedition to Cuba "Underwater City" Site Planned-- Page 27 By Hernán Casares Camera Thanks to: Donald Raab The Russian-Canadian oceanographer Paulina Zelitsky reveals that likely, next autumn, between October and November, she will lead a new expedition, from the Port of Progress, to finish the work that could not be concluded last year at the suspected site of a lost underwater city near Cuba; to map the area and to make a hi-resolution film of the location. National Geographic will finance most of the trip. For several months the team has been readying a specially equipped ship...

In May, the Bush economy eked out a paltry 73,000 private sector jobs: 20,000 jobs in construction (primarily for Mexican immigrants), 21,000 jobs in wholesale and retail trade, and 32,500 jobs in health care and social assistance. Local government added 5,000 for a grand total of 78,000. Not a single one of these jobs produces an exportable good or service. With Americans increasingly divorced from the production of the goods and services that they consume, Americans have no way to pay for their consumption except by handing over to foreigners more of their accumulated stock of wealth. The country continues...

A Glimpse Ahead Timothy Snodgrass The Impossible Will Come Alive In 2005 01/28/05 In January of 2004, as we began to intercede for the New Year the Holy Spirit gave us the prophetic slogan, "The Seas will Roar in 2004". This year we were given a new slogan, "The Impossible will come Alive in 2005". As the veil of darkness begins to come down over nations and regions, along with great shakings will come great breakthroughs; signs, wonders, healings and a spectacular release of miracles in impossible circumstances. This year, although we are ultimately poised to gain much ground, there...

New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has long been rumored as desperately seeking the democratic nomination for president in 2008. And while many political observers fully expect the power hungry former First Lady to hit the campaign trail within only a few months of being re-elected as a US Senator in 2006, US News & World report claims to have a confirmation of sorts. From USNews.Com's Washington Whispers: Hillary's in… You don't have to take it from us about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's desire to run for president. Her brothers, Hugh and Tony Rodham, say it's true. Friends...

MOSCOW – In his harshest criticism of the Kremlin to date, jailed tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky accused the Russian government of stealing his Yukos oil empire and warned in a letter published Tuesday that an ongoing crackdown on post-Soviet freedoms will ruin the country. Writing from prison, where he has been for more than 14 months, Khodorkovsky said the sale of Yukos' main production unit into state hands this month "was the most senseless and destructive event in the economic sphere since President Vladimir Putin has taken helm." "Using selective justice, introducing new legal norms and applying them retroactively," the state...

The following ARE exerpts... "...From Hercules' poisoned arrows to early germ warfare and attacks with scorpion bombs and red-hot sand, she contends, cultures around the world have grappled with the revulsion and justification of using these unconventional weapons ever since they began creating their own myths and recording their histories. Mayor has compiled a slew of examples in her new book, "Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World" (Overlook Press)..." "...The early dilemmas posed in mythic form would be recorded eventually in the annals of historians as combatants put their growing knowledge...

A mysterious ancient stone mask from Mexico has spoken but apparently only to say that its people's written language remains undeciphered. BYU's Stephen Houston holds a copy of ancient script from Mexico. He disagrees with claims that "Teo Mask" words have been deciphered.Stuart Johnson, Deseret Morning News A study by Brigham Young University archaeologist Stephen Houston and his colleague from Yale University, Michael D. Coe, say the mask disproves earlier claims that the language had been cracked. Their paper is to be published in "Mexicon," a journal about news and research from Mesoamerica. The title is "Has Isthmian Writing Been...

Please, read my comment after the following! Farrell does *not* speak for us! ====================== "'Top Ten List' and Campaign Action Photos" August 14, 2003 Dear Friends, Here's my gubernatorial campaign's first press release -- just off the press! (See the Top Ten List.) And you can now access my Gubernatorial web site directly: www.warrenfarrell.com/gov. (Enjoy the Action Photos.) Would you let me know if these make my purposes clear? Exhausted in California, Warren Contact: Ph: 760 753 5000 E: warren@w... Web: www.warrenfarrell.com or www.warrenfarrell.com/gov POLITICALLY INCORRECT AUTHOR ENTERS POLITICS Fathers' Issues Author Wants to be "Governor for Kids" CARLSBAD, Calif....

<p>HOULTON, Maine (AP) Eleven American flags have recently been slashed or stolen from homes and businesses in this small northern Maine town, police said.</p> <p>Seven of the flags were slashed Thursday at random locations throughout Houlton, apparently with a knife or razor, said Police Chief Daniel Soucy.</p>

New Age For Mungo Man, New Human HistoryA University of Melbourne-led study has finally got scientists to agree on the age of Mungo Man, Australia's oldest human remains, and the consensus is he is 22,000 years younger. A University of Melbourne-led team say Mungo Man's new age is 40,000 years, reigniting the debate for the 'Out of Africa' theory. The research also boosted the age of Mungo Lady, the world's first recorded cremation, by 10,000 years putting her at the same age as Mungo Man. It is the first time scientists have reached a broad agreement on the ages of...

GAMBLING'S allure has always been the prospect of fast action and easy money. And with the explosion of legalized gaming in Kentucky and Indiana during the past decade and a half, more and more people are being consumed by it. People like Caleb Cooley, a Pikeville, Ky., accountant who stole from clients and served time for theft. And like Phyllis Kruer, a Georgetown, Ind., real-estate agent who committed suicide. A golf club for which she served as board secretary alleged she embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars. While both states have received billions of dollars in gambling revenue that has...

Issue 5.12 - Dec 1997 The Future Ruins of the Nuclear Age By Masha Gessen In pursuit of superpower status during the Cold War, the Soviet Union built 60 science boomtowns. Then in 1990, the Soviet Union collapsed, and funding for the cities ended. Masha Gessen reports from Russia on this grand experiment in failure. When two protons collide in an accelerator, they are transformed into muons and other particles. One Russian physicist offers this analogy: it's like two Soviet Fiats colliding to produce a bus and a Mercedes Benz 600. That's the thing about high-energy physics: the total...

Canadian teen arrested for trying to light shoe. PITTSburgh - A 17 year old Canadian passenger on a US Airways flight from Toronto was arrested for using a lighter on his shoe, authorities said. The teenager, who is of Iranian descent, told police he was burningloose material off his tennis shoes as the plane taxied into Pittsburgh International Airport Saturday. The youth was cited for disorderly conduct and released into custody of his father (AP).

Explorers View 'Lost City' Ruins Under Caribbean FROM REUTERS CUBA, Dec 8 (VNN) — Author: Andrew Cawthorne HAVANA (Reuters) - Explorers using a miniature submarine to probe the sea floor off the coast of Cuba said on Thursday they had confirmed the discovery of stone structures deep below the ocean surface that may have been built by an unknown human civilization thousands of years ago. Researchers with a Canadian exploration company said they filmed over the summer ruins of a possible submerged ''lost city'' off the Guanahacabibes Peninsula on the Caribbean island's western tip. The researchers cautioned that they did...