Free Republic

Inside the Beltway: Polar vortex fits leftist agenda By Jennifer Harper The Washington Times Monday, January 6, 2014 The word of the day is “polar vortex,” which has inspired several thousand press accounts obsessing over the frigid weather pattern now freezing much of the nation — along with a call of fraud. “Right on schedule, the media have to come up with a way to make it sound like this is completely unprecedented, because they’ve got to find a way to attach this to the global warming agenda. And they have. It’s called the polar vortex. The dreaded polar vortex,”...

DAILY CURRANT – Colorado is reconsidering its decision to legalize recreational pot following the deaths of dozens due to marijuana overdoses. According to a report in the Rocky Mountain News, 37 people were killed across the state on January 1st, the first day the drug became legal for all adults to purchase. Several more are clinging onto life in local emergency rooms and are not expected to survive. “It’s complete chaos here,” says Dr. Jack Shepard, chief of surgery at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Denver, “I’ve put five college students in body bags since breakfast and more are arriving...

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION FBI. WASHINGTON DC. ANTI-TERRORIST AND MONETARY CRIMES DIVISION FBI HEADQUARTERS IN WASHINGTON, D.C. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING 935 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, NW WASHINGTON, D.C. 20535-0001 Attention: Beneficiary, Series of meetings have been held over the past 7 months with the secretary general of the United Nations Organization. This ended 3 days ago. It is obvious that you have not received your fund which is to the tune of $3.5,000,000,00 Million us dollars due to past corrupt Governmental Officials who almost held the fund to themselves for their selfish reason and some individuals who...

Believe it or not, the first cold fusion power plant is now available to pre-order. The E-Cat 1MW Plant, which comes in a standard shipping container, can produce one megawatt of thermal energy, using low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR) — a process, often known as cold fusion, that fuses nickel and hydrogen into copper, producing energy 100,000 times more efficiently than combustion. It sounds like E-Cat is now taking orders for delivery in early 2014, priced fairly reasonably at $1.5 million. Has cold fusion — the answer to all our energy needs — finally made its way to market?

On the flat lava plain of Reykjanesbaer, Iceland, near the Arctic Circle, you can find the mines of Bitcoin. To get there, you pass through a fortified gate and enter a featureless yellow building. After checking in with a guard behind bulletproof glass, you face four more security checkpoints, including a so-called man trap that allows passage only after the door behind you has shut. This brings you to the center of the operation, a fluorescent-lit room with more than 100 whirring silver computers, each in a locked cabinet and each cooled by blasts of Arctic air shot up from...

It might be easy to forget, but ultraliberal Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla) is one of those dreaded "greedheads" who deal in millions of dollars of stocks. A story on the front of The Washington Post business section on Sunday reports Grayson “got burned twice by ‘stock loan’ schemes that have cost him nearly $50 million.” Dina El Boghdady reports Grayson is ranked 21st in the House for wealth, with a net worth of “at least $16.7 million, in part due to the value of his stock portfolio.” Grayson lost about $18 million in transactions with Virginia businessman William Dean Chapman,...

Overstock.com – the American internet retailer with over a billion dollars per year in sales – will accept Bitcoin starting in 2014. As Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne told the Financial Times: I think a healthy monetary system at the end of the day isn’t an upside down pyramid based on the whim of a government official, but is based on something that they can’t control. If there’s going to be some part of the population which adopts it… I think that we’ll get that business. And the people who switch to it will respect that we started adopting it. Europe...

The New York City Council voted Thursday to ban the use of e-cigarettes in public places where smoking is prohibited, including offices, restaurants, hospitals, parks and beaches. “Because many of the E-cigarettes are designed to look like cigarettes and be used just like them, they can lead to confusion or confrontation,” City Council Speaker Christine Quinn told CBS New York.

he New York City Council approved legislation Thursday to ban the use of electronic cigarettes from indoor public spaces where smoking is already prohibited. Because many of the e-cigarettes are designed to look like cigarettes and be used just like them, they can lead to confusion or confrontation,” Quinn said

Q uestions about the health benefits of vitamin supplements have been percolating in the medical establishment for decades — even as the multivitamin industry has grown to a multi-billion powerhouse in the U.S. This week, the respected journal the Annals of Internal Medicine put its well-heeled foot down. "We believe that the case is closed — supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults with (most) mineral or vitamin supplements has no clear benefit and might even be harmful," the journal said in an editorial. "These vitamins should not be used for chronic disease prevention. Enough is enough." Here's Dr. Edgar Miller...

In a perfect world, it wouldn’t be necessary for me to begin this article by affirming that I am not a supporter of smoking, nor am I a paid shill of the tobacco industry. But in our real world–in which a goodly amount of scientific research grant money is awarded on the basis of sensationalized fearmongering results–those who question the validity of such results are often attacked. “Kill the messenger” is hardly a new phenomenon, having been recorded as early as 442 BC in the play Antigone by Sophocles. That said, let’s proceed to the matter at hand: The overblown...

WASHINGTON—Former Energy Secretary Steven Chu is joining the board of directors of a Canadian company that says it has a cost-effective way to capture and reuse carbon dioxide from power plants fired by coal and natural gas. Vancouver-based Inventys Thermal Technologies says it has developed a process that it says uses less energy than conventional carbon capture techniques and is less expensive. A Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Chu served as energy secretary in President Barack Obama's first term and now teaches physics at Stanford University. "It's a cause I believe in, and it is also something that has a shot at...

A confidential training manual for Obamacare navigators that threatens prosecution for unauthorized dissemination is on the Internet for the world to see. The 217-page manual reads like a primer for Amway or novice car salesmen, offering sales advice on how to disarm potential customers who could be lured into purchasing insurance through exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act. Section headers include “Smile: Maintain a Positive Demeanor,” “Make the Customers Feel Welcome,” “Listen” and — in what must now seem ironic given Barack Obama’s troubles with over-promising — “Build Trust: Be True to Your Word.”

Mayor Bloomberg on Friday defended the new city mandate that kids under five who attend pre-school or daycare get annual flu shots -- a rule critics say is just another nanny-state move by Hizzoner. Opponents of the compulsory shots -- including autism activists suspicious of vaccination complications -- protested on the steps of City Hall Tuesday, calling the requirement intrusive and absurd. As for parents who say it's their call as to whether kids should get the flu jab, Bloomberg said, "Your kid can impact other kids by transferring a disease and bringing it home...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —A trick used worldwide has hit the Louisville area. Investigators are warning the public about the black money scam used to swindle people out of thousands. "In this situation we came across something unique. A scam in our community we had ever seen before," said Louisville Metro Police Chief Steve Conrad. Authorities discovered $50,000 in real U.S. currency along with a suitcase full of what's called "black money." Authorities said they've seen the black money scam recently in at least four U.S. cities. "'It was a drug deal gone bad. We were able to smuggle the money out...

Restaurants and bars would have the option of allowing smoking on patios and other outdoor portions of their businesses under bipartisan legislation recently introduced in the state Legislature. "I think this something businesses should be able to offer if they choose to," said Rep. Tom McMillin, R-Rochester Hills, the sponsor of House Bill 5159. "People step outside to smoke now anyway. "I am not a smoker, but to me this is an issue of liberty and property rights," Rep. McMillin continued. "That's why I didn't support the smoking ban legislation when it was in the House. If I was in...

The Environmental Protection Agency was warned as early as July 2010 that a senior executive who claimed to be a CIA agent was collecting pay and bonuses not allowed by law but took no action for years, according to a new report from the agency’s inspector general. Auditors warned EPA administrators that continuing “retention bonuses” for John C. Beale, which were not authorized, had pushed his salary above the legal maximum, according to the report, obtained Tuesday by The Washington Post. In July 2010, the EPA’s human resources office contacted Beale’s Office of Air and Radiation with a document it...

I'm sitting at my desk, looking at a photograph of a gangrenous foot. It is a bloated thing in hues of phlegmatic gray rot, sanguine inflammation, melancholic black bile, and choleric open sores​—​exhibiting all the humors of a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Above the photograph, in bold white capitals on a dull, matte background are the words “smoking causes peripheral vascular disease.” The photograph is helpfully labeled “gangrene.” Below the photograph, in a bland sans-serif typeface with letters an eighth of an inch high, is “Marlboro Red.” This is a pack of Australian cigarettes, conforming to...

First the city banned smoking in most public places. Now it’s moving to snuff out the use of smokeless electronic cigarettes as well. The City Council announced Wednesday that it will hold a hearing Wednesday on a bill prohibiting the use of the battery-operated, tobacco-free vaporizers in restaurants, offices, parks, beaches and other places where smoking regular cigarettes is not allowed.

SAN RAFAEL, Calif., Nov. 22 (UPI) -- A California ordinance that prohibits smoking in residences with shared walls may be the strictest anti-smoking law in the United States, city officials say. The ban, passed by the city of San Rafael, applies to both owners and renters, ABC News reported Thursday. It covers any multi-family residence with three or more units, including condominiums, co-ops and apartments. The ban took effect Nov. 14.