Free Republic

An avalanche of apples that pelted road users in Coventry is just the latest in a series of bizarre examples of things falling from the sky. Residents, officials and scientists were left baffled in June 2009 by an apparent downfall of dead tadpoles in central Japan's Ishikawa prefecture. Clouds of the creatures appeared to have fallen from the sky in a series of episodes in a number of cities in the region. One 55-year-old man who heard a strange sound in a car park in the city of Nanao found more than 100 dead tadpoles covering the windscreens of cars...

'Ask Osama bin Laden ... whether I engage in appeasement." Barack Obama, Dec. 8, 2011 Fair enough. Barack Obama didn't appease Osama bin Laden. He killed him. And for ordering the raid and taking the risk, Obama deserves credit for his decisiveness and political courage. However, the bin Laden case was no policy test. No serious person of either party ever suggested negotiation or concession. Obama showed decisiveness, but forgoing a nonoption says nothing about the soundness of one's foreign policy. That comes into play when there are choices to be made. And here the story is different. Take Obama's...

U.S. Congressman David Cicilline (D-RI) is asking unemployed Rhode Islanders to share their stories so that his colleagues will understand the importance of passing an emergency extension to benefits set to expire for more than 2 million Americans on Dec. 31. The Congressman has launched a new Tell Your Story feature on his website in hopes to convince the House and Senate to pass the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2011 (H.R. 3346) which would continue the program through the end of 2012. More the 9,800 state residents currently depend on the aid and according to Director of the...

Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday ordered $1 billion in midyear cuts to California's budget that will result in pain for students who rely on school buses to get to class, mothers who depend on child care subsidies to keep working and support programs for the developmentally disabled. Brown, a Democrat, said that the state's revenues will fall about $2.2 billion below the $88.4 billion he and state lawmakers had hoped for when they passed the budget last summer. The announcement was not surprising and could have been worse. The state's legislative analyst had predicted revenues would fall $3.7 billion below...

Mid-East Prophecy Update - December 11th 2011 Pastor JD's latest. Part 2 of 2. Topic: The rise of Islam, and the role of Islam, as it relates to the future of Islam which suggests, at best, that Islam plays a most prominent role, and at worst, Islam plays a dominant role in the Anti-Christ's one world religion.

Seven decades after Pearl Harbor and one decade after 9/11 we Americans dare not remain willfully oblivious to the threat of the Black Swan. Our grand American experiment is more vulnerable now that it was in 1941 and it is certainly more precariously balanced than it was in 2011. These conundrums are what Donald Rumsfeld might describe as the "known unknowns" but by definition a Black Swan event is as surprising as it is earth shattering. So all of these threats which beset us are by definition not Black Swan events. They are known risks. There are many more risks...

Why does Obama claim that economists say more money for Unemployment and an extension of the Payroll Tax Holiday will create jobs? It hasn't yet done so. Why will the next year be any different??

(podcast ... a must listen) Was the collapse of MF Global an accident or the calculated move of a political insider? Ann passionately lays the whole scheme bare, explaining the massive implications this has for our legal and financial systems, not to mention how investors should prepare in the face of massive corruption.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Weekly jobless claims have jumped back over the 400,000 mark. Why is anybody surprised? "Claims for unemployment insurance unexpectedly rose last week, climbing past the psychologically important 400,000 mark as the jobs market showed signs of more weakness. Weekly applications for unemployment benefits rose 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 402,000," and this is gonna end up being 410 or 412 thousand by the time they revise this next week. " Applications had been below 400,000 for three straight weeks." Can you imagine...? This is on CNBC, but it's actually AP, but "the psychologically important 400,000"? Stop and...

FXstreet.com (Barcelona) - S&P rating agency has just downgraded 37 global banks. Goldman, BofA, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, BNY Mellon are amongst the cuts based on a new methodology. Japanese and UK banks cut or outlook lowered as well.

"I think the problem is that the poor children, keep in mind it's 42% of poor children who live at or near poverty, it's 25% in poverty. Our audience needs to keep that in mind." Cornel West said on MSNBC this afternoon. "Poor children need more than just a $1,000 for their family, they need a war against poverty to make it a major priority in the way which we have a priority for Afghanistan, and a priority to bail out banks, and a priority to defend corporate interests when it comes to environmental issues," West said about more and...

Rounding Up Another Week Of Great Economic Data New Deal democrat, The Bonddad Blog Nov. 26, 2011, 9:39 AM In the rear view mirror, second quarter GDP was revised down from 2.5% to 2.0%. The more forward looking durable goods orders declined for a second month, down -0.7%. Another leading indicator, the University of Michigan final consumer sentiment reading for November showed that consumer confidence has rebounded about halfway from its debt ceiling debacle collapse that began in July. Personal income was up 0.4%, while spending rose only 0.1%. The personal savings rate rose .2% to 3.5%. With the continuing...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The U.S. economy grew at a slower pace than originally estimated in the third quarter, mainly because companies reduced inventories and did not invest as much. The Commerce Department cut its estimate of gross domestic product to 2.0% from a first reading of 2.5%. Government’s second revision of GDP includes data not fully available earlier, such inventory levels and trade data. As a result, it paints a more accurate picture of U.S. growth. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected the government to trim its estimate to 2.3%. Still, the 2.0% growth rate was the fastest since the fourth...

In what economists are hailing as a clear sign of economic recovery, Walmart customers across the USA jammed into stores on Black Friday, sometimes killing each other to buy useless ----.

A mild inflation, a slightly larger volume of currency inthe economy than the amount needed for transactions and investment, is betterthan deflation which is when there is less currency in the economy than what isrequired. A slightly inflated dollar is an optimistic statement which says thatthings are going to get better and that slightly more money is available forspending, borrowing and investing. Yet such inflation only works if it is anatural byproduct of bullish spending and investing. There are three means in which the dollar can be inflated. Whileone of those means is good and healthy, the other two are...

A failed German bond auction provided the clearest sign yet that even the strongest eurozone country is at growing risk of crisis contagion. The German government was unable to sell about 35pc of the €6bn (£5bn) 10-year bonds it offered to the market, getting just €3.9bn of debt away. The setback came as Fitch Ratings issued a warning that France’s AAA credit rating would be at risk should the crisis result in a sharper downturn in the country than currently envisaged. “The sovereign debt crisis may have had its most critical day yet,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director at Forex.com....

Liberal politicians and the occupiers who are encamped in our cities are selling a discouraging story that the American Dream is dead and out of the reach for the average citizen without government actively engaging in wealth redistribution and entitlement programs. They are mistaken. The American Dream is still alive for those willing to apply themselves in achieving their own dreams. Yes, the gap between those in the top 1% and those in poverty has grown, but a closer look at the income mobility research indicates that the people who make up the “rich” and the “poor” change. People still...

Obama has less than one year to boost his ratings, and the latest housing bail-out plan is part of his campaign. But will it work in the long run? Let’s take a look. HARP 2.0 (Home Affordable Refinance Program) launched this week with the hopes of helping at least 1 million underwater borrowers refinance into today’s low rates, even if they owe much more on their home than it’s currently worth. While the rules are less stringent than the original not-so-effective HARP program, it still won’t save enough underwater homeowners from losing their homes. Why? 1). It only applies to...

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – A month ago, at an investment conference in Baltimore, my colleague Eric Fry asked if I think there’s another “bubble” out there that’s going to pop. My reply was that I believe the “education” bubble is destined for doom. It’ll be just one more thing to smack down the US economy, and makes for another reason — as if we need more — to hold precious metals as portfolio protection. In the US, there’s over $1 trillion of “student loan” debt on the books. This is money that people borrowed from banks and government agencies (Sallie Mae...

The potential for war with Iran is being hotly debated, in light of the new report about that country’s alleged nuclear arsenal. “The regime in Iran poses a significant threat to regional and global peace,” Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird told reporters, responding to the release of the International Atomic Energy Agency report. The report, released Wednesday, laid out the most details yet of Iran’s alleged effort to build a nuclear arsenal. But there has been some questioning the sources of that report. And now, some lawmakers in the U.S. are suggesting that Iran might have some ideas on what...