Free Republic

Reagan's landslide challenges the pulse-taker profession For weeks before the presidential election, the gurus of public opinion polling were nearly unanimous in their findings. In survey after survey, they agreed that the coming choice between President Jimmy Carter and Challenger Ronald Reagan was "too close to call." A few points at most, they said, separated the two major contenders. But when the votes were counted, the former California Governor had defeated Carter by a margin of 51% to 41% in the popular vote—a rout for a U.S. presidential race. In the electoral college, the Reagan victory was a 10-to-l avalanche...

It’s almost like yelling, “There’s not a fire” in a crowded theater. It’s enough to get the audience’s attention by startling them, even though the alarm isn’t supported by reality. Such is the case with the cover of the new issue of Time magazine, which features a photograph of a Depression-era soup line and a headline, “The New Hard Times.” However at the bottom of the cover in much smaller print – “No, this isn’t Depression 2.0.” And the article itself suggests a preventative measure to ward off a Depression – government intervention. ...more (w/video)...

Prof Stephen Hawking is to unveil a remarkable £1 million clock with no hands that pays tribute to the world's greatest clockmaker. One clock made by the legendary John Harrison, the pioneer of longitude, took 36 years to build and he was still calibrating it when he died at his home in London on March 24, 1776, his 83rd birthday. The Corpus Clock will be unveiled by Prof Stephen Hawking The Corpus Clock will be unveiled by Prof Stephen Hawking The Corpus Clock has been invented and designed by Dr John Taylor for Corpus Christi College Cambridge for the exterior...

Wednesday morning, August 27, between 11 am and 1:30 pm EST or 9 am and 11:30 am mountain time, I'll be chairing a New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force event in Denver at the Colorado History Museum. The keynotes are Senator JOHN KERRY (D-MA), Obama National Security Adviser GREG CRAIG, Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School Dean ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER, former Congressman and Obama Adviser MEL LEVINE, former German Foreign Minister JOSCHKA FISCHER, and Aspen Institute President (and former CNN Chairman and CEO and TIME Managing Editor) Walter Isaacson. Our panel will be former Israeli negotiator and New America Foundation Senior Fellow...

It is one thing to be called "The Blogger Behind the Obama Hit Job" and quite another to be referred to as a "less-than-authoritative source". Needless to say, it naturally begs the question - Who would be an authoritative source? For much of America's mainstream media, the answer is of course themselves. But alas the times they are a changing. On to the rebuttal. "The first mention of Martin's blog comes on Page 52 of Obama Nation, when it is cited as the source for Corsi's assertion that when Obama's Muslim stepfather registered him at a Catholic school in Indonesia,...

Time magazine Managing Editor Richard Stengel told the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on July 17 that “there’s incredible despair out there and there’s a sense that, that something needs to be done and people have kind of an appetite for big government in a way” in America. Stengel was citing a new poll, but the interview did not discuss the fact that the poll also found 80 percent of respondents said they should be responsible for carrying their own financial burdens.

Illinois Senator Barack Obama enters the General Election with a tight lead, 43% to 38%, over Arizona Senator John McCain, according to a new TIME Magazine poll of registered voters. The poll shows Obama gaining only a slight bounce from Hillary Clinton's departure from the campaign early this month.

Every few weeks, TIME Magazine sends me another offer to subscribe to their communist garbage. See, I received a gift membership from a relative for Christmas a few years ago and did not renew (duh). These guys do not relent. In the envelope is the offer letter, a glossy bookmark, and a sheet describing my "free" gift if I subscribe (the same piece of garbage alarm/radio which I received with my gift membership). Oh, and a postage-paid return envelope. I just tossed them all until I saw this cover one day while at the grocery store: I have a feeling...

THE hottest spot in town on the media scene was the Time 100 party last night at Jazz at Lincoln Center to honor the 100 people that the weekly magazine deems to be the world's most influential. Somewhere between 30 and 40 honorees were expected to be on hand for last night's event, which meant that the majority of those who were named the world's most influential - such as Mayor Bloomberg - didn't attend the black-tie bash. Time Managing Editor Richard Stengel said that so far the magazine has not ranked the honorees in any particular order. While some...

Currently president of the US bishops, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago mused that liberal Catholicism was an "exhausted project" back in 1997... and now, in posing the question, no less than TIME follows suit: The liberal rebellion in American Catholicism has dogged Benedict and his predecessors since the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65. "Vatican II," which overhauled much of Catholic teaching and ritual, had a revolutionary impact on the Church as a whole. It enabled people to hear the Mass in their own languages; embraced the principle of religious freedom; rejected anti-semitism; and permitted Catholic scholars to grapple with modernity. But...

Time magazine asked who you thought should be on the list of the 100 most influential people of the year. Over 200 candidates were given a rating of 1 to 100. And your #1 choice?

$42 Billion Transit Proposal Moves in Wrong Direction Byron Schlomach, Goldwater Institute Daily Email, April 30, 2008 After months of rumblings around the state capitol, a private coalition called TIME – Transportation and Infrastructure Moving AZ’s Economy – has unveiled a $42 billion solution for Arizona’s transportation problems. It can be summed up as “tax and spend.” Under the proposal, the state’s sales tax would increase by one cent. By itself, a cent seems small, but this would make Arizona’s state sales tax rate the fifth highest in the nation according to the Tax Foundation. Arizona already has the nation’s...

Time Warner Inc. reported a 36% drop in first-quarter net income as the media conglomerate announced plans to give its 84% stake in Time Warner Cable Inc. to shareholders. Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes said, "We've decided that a complete structural separation of Time Warner Cable, under the right circumstances, is in the best interests of both companies' shareholders." He added the company is "working hard" on a deal expected to be finalized "soon." Time Warner officials have been weighing what to do with the stake for years. The cable operations, which Time Warner sold a stake in through a 2007...

It’s wasn’t the first Time and it won’t be the last Time. Showing an utter disregard for ethical journalism, the editors at Time twisted American patriotism into an ad for the green movement to promote “winning the war on global warming.” Green is the new red, white and blue we are told by editors who never liked the old red, white and blue. The magazine used the historic Iwo Jima flag raising photo as a global warming marketing gimmick for its April 28 issue. The flag the Marines were raising was replaced with a tree to equate the evils our...

Baby McBaby took his first steps this week — the first of many. This is, of course, a happy occasion. Yet you know me — I never let a happy occasion pass without pausing to add a bit of neuochemical Angst. Yes, I'm thrilled to see our little Soybean making his initial "one small step for mankind". I'd be worried if he didn't! Yet even as I watch those little feet move, my heart swells with joy — but also with a sharp, stinging melancholy, for I know that they are moving along a path that will eventually carry him...

April 23, 2008 Richard Stengel Managing Editor Time Magazine Mr. Stengel, The cover of your April 28, 2008 Special Environmental Issue is appalling, and offensive to the veterans of the battle of Iwo Jima, the United States Marine Corps, all members of our Armed Services and every American who understands and reveres the sacrifice of those Marines who fought and died to raise our flag atop Mount Suribachi and to everyone who has ever stood up to serve to help us remain free. Your subsequent “explanation”, devoid of an apology, was no better. Co-opting the hallowed image of the United...

Time magazine continued to defend its manipulation of the classic Iwo Jima flag-raising photo – calling it a “point of view.” Managing Editor Richard Stengel said the cover art was part of the publication’s global warming advocacy and a way of forcing readers to “pay attention.” Stengel defied the traditional notion that journalists should be unbiased. “I didn’t go to journalism school,” Stengel said. “But this notion that journalism is objective, or must be objective is something that has always bothered me – because the notion about objectivity is in some ways a fantasy. I don’t know that there is...

Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth. ...SNIP... The meeting also reviewed what has been described as a Mecca watch, the brainchild of a French Muslim.br>

The Daily Mail in the U.K. is reporting that WWII veterans are furious over next week’s cover of TIME and the manipulation of the famous photo of marines raising the United States flag during the battle at Iwo Jima after TIME replaced the flag with a tree for the article, “How to Win The War on Global Warming”. One Imo Jima veteran, 81-year-old Donald Mates, felt the Times’ cover was “an absolute disgrace” and that “Whoever did this is going to hell.” He went to say it was a “mortal sin”. Why would veterans be upset about TIME magazine essentially...

Animals Are 'Stuck In Time' With Little Idea Of Past Or Future, Study SuggestsNew research indicates that rats are able to keep track of how much time has passed since they discovered a piece of cheese, be it a little or a lot of time, but they don't actually form memories of when the discovery occurred. That is, the rats can't place the memories in time. (Credit: iStockphoto/Maria Bibikova) ScienceDaily (Apr. 7, 2008) — Dog owners, who have noticed that their four-legged friend seem equally delighted to see them after five minutes away as five hours, may wonder if animals...

Any help to re-establish EDT as my time default will be appreciated. Since the FR downtime a few days ago, only PDT is available regardless of updating my "Preferences". TIA...

CEO Mentions Trimming Mag Portfolio; Company Denies Plans to Sell Titles NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Still on Ann S. Moore's to-do list: trimming the portfolio of Time Inc. titles. That's the impression she left with many staffers after a quarterly management meeting March 27. Ms. Moore, Time Inc.'s chairman-CEO, told top managers that she is still looking carefully at the portfolio of magazines so the company -- the country's biggest magazine publisher, with brands such as Time, Sports Illustrated and People -- can focus on the titles best positioned for growth in print and online. Although that notion isn't new,...

Forecasting Tsunami Threats Through Layers of Sand and Time Map Of The Bay Of Bengal The catastrophic Indian Ocean event in December 2004 that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries – including 15,000 in India – was hardly a one freak occurrence. It could happen again. Newswise — Azhii peralai: from the deep … large waves. This is the expression for ‘tsunami’ in Tamil, the oldest language in southern India. For an ancient dialect to have its own phrase for destructive waves triggered by earthquakes, the people of Tamil Nadu likely experienced tsunamis periodically through the centuries, says Halifax...

Even after a big loss in Mississippi yesterday, the Clinton team feels more sanguine about their chances for the nomination. They have the next few weeks to continue pressuring Barack Obama and pushing him into the kind of negative campaigning that will diminish his New Politics standing. And as the primaries move out of the South and into the industrial North, the demographics will start turning in Hillary’s favor: Mississippi marks the last primary or caucus for a six-week stretch — by far the longest pause in this year’s nomination fight.That gives Clinton a chance to battle Obama without time...

Officials Question Value Of Daylight Savings TimeReport Says Changing The Clock Doesn't Save Energy UPDATED: 1:44 pm MST March 8, 2008 FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- It not only costs most people an hour of sleep, now officials and researchers are questioning the value of daylight savings time. Daylight savings time starts on Sunday at 2 a.m. Remember to set your clocks one hour ahead tonight. The concept was first put forward by Benjamin Franklin, as a satire, during a visit to Paris. He wrote that fewer candles would be used if people got up earlier and went to bed earlier....

Wellll ... that's what the label would read if there was one on my computer.

MUSLIM university students want lectures to be rescheduled to fit in with prayer timetables and separate male and female eating and recreational areas established on Australian campuses. International Muslim students, predominantly from Saudi Arabia, have asked universities in Melbourne to change class times so they can attend congregational prayers. They also want a female-only area for Muslim students to eat and relax. But at least one institution has rejected their demands, arguing that the university is secular and it does not want to set a precedent for requests granted in the name of religious beliefs. La Trobe University International chief...

Magazine Publisher Time Inc. Will Make More Cuts This Year, Time Warner Discloses in Filing NEW YORK (AP) -- Time Warner Inc. said in its annual regulatory filing Friday that it expects to cut more jobs in its magazine publishing division in the first quarter, resulting in $10 million to $20 million in expenses. Time Inc. spokeswoman Dawn Bridges said that the job cuts affected fewer than 100 people, and that most of them had already occurred in various parts of the company. Time Inc. has a global work force of more than 10,000. Time Warner, whose Time Inc. division...

Time magazine received a body blow in the latest circulation report from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, leading a round of bad news for consumer magazines in a variety of categories. Comparing the second half of 2007 with the same period in 2006, Time Inc.'s flagship title saw newsstand sales fall 19.4% to 107,277, as subscriptions tumbled 17.5% to 3,244,595. Overall, circulation fell 17.6% to 3,351,872. In November 2006, Time cut its rate base 18.8% to 3.25 million, so the decline in subscriptions may be due partly to a purge of "junk" circulation, including automatically renewed subscriptions. But it's hard...

~EXCERPT~ Though the real election is nine months away, Sen. Barack Obama would fare slightly better than Sen. Hillary Clinton in a head to head match-up with Sen. John McCain if the general election were held today, a new TIME poll reveals. Obama captured 48% of the vote in the theoretical match-up against McCain's 41%, the TIME poll reported, while Clinton and McCain would deadlock at 46% of the vote each. Put another way, McCain looks at the moment to have a narrowly better chance of beating the New York Senator than he does the relative newcomer from Illinois. The...

Time travellers from the future 'could be here in weeks' By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 6:01pm GMT 06/02/2008 The first time travellers from the future could materialise on Earth within a few weeks. Physicists around the world are excitedly awaiting the start up of the £4.65 billion Large Hadron Collider, LHC - the most powerful atom-smasher ever built - which is supposed to shed new light on the particles and forces at work in the cosmos and reproduce conditions that date to near the Big Bang of creation. 1.21 gigawatts of electricity: Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd...

Having a tornado demolish her home was bad enough. But weeks later when Ann Beam received a $2,000 cable bill for destroyed equipment, she was floored. "I just couldn't believe it," Beam said. "I was like: 'What are they thinking?"' Time Warner Cable billed a number of Wheatland residents for equipment damaged in the Jan. 7 twister... She immediately called the cable company but a man who identified himself as a manager said there was nothing the company could do. "They said I would have to take the bill and turn it in to my insurance company," ... But her...

HOW LONG DOES THE USA HAVE? This is the most interesting thing I've read in a long time. The sad thing about it, you can see it coming. I have always heard about this democracy countdown. It is interesting and concerning to see it in print. God help us, not that we deserve it. How Long Do We Have? About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh , had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier: 'A...

For someone with a reputation for being unsentimental about his company, it was perhaps surprising that Jeffrey L. Bewkes looked to the past when he spoke at a Time Warner management retreat in Miami in late November — his first since being tapped as the company’s next chief executive. Before the top 200 executives at a ballroom in Miami’s Mandarin Oriental hotel, Mr. Bewkes invoked the legacies of Henry R. Luce and Ted Turner in ticking off the accomplishments of the assembly’s predecessors: inventing the newsmagazine (Time), and spearheading cable news (CNN) and pay television (HBO), according to three executives...

Time magazine has terminated its relationships with its two conservative columnists, Charles Krauthammer and William Kristol. The New York Observer has the details: The exact reasons for the departures of Mr. Krauthammer and Mr. Kristol, both high-profile backers of the Iraq war, are not entirely clear. “I was very happy to work with them,” said Mr. Krauthammer on the phone from his Washington office. “And I have a lot of things that occupy me.” Asked if he would have preferred to stay with the magazine, Mr. Krauthammer, a Pulitzer Prize winner who writes a regular column for The Washington Post,...

NEW YORK — Russian President Vladimir Putin was named the Time magazine "Person of the Year." Richard Stengel, Time's managing editor, said the 2007 honor went to the Russian leader "for an extraordinary feat of leadership in taking a country that was in chaos and bringing it stability." Others in the running for the honor included Nobel Prize-winner Al Gore and author J.K. Rowling

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12, 2007 – Johnny Ondrasik turns 8 years old this Christmas Eve, but he isn’t asking for any presents on his birthday -- at least not for himself. John Ondrasik, a singer-songwriter who performs under the stage name Five for Fighting, has spearheaded a special CD for the nation’s servicemembers. The CD features 13 of today’s top artists and songs. He was in Washington, D.C., this week singing on Capitol Hill and promoting the CD. Photo by Fred W. Baker III  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “Daddy, can I have my friends donate money … for...

12/10/2007 - DALLAS (AFPN) -- Military advocates across America are making their support work twice as hard with Army and Air Force Exchange Service "Gifts from the Homefront" gift certificates. While assistance sent through this troop-support initiative provides for the immediate needs of troops throughout operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, revenue generated from the redemption of the gift certificates also strengthens important quality of life efforts for military Families closer to home. "AAFES' dual mission to serve America's troops and generate funds to support military Morale, Welfare and Recreation programs means that resources dedicated to 'Gifts from the Homefront'...

Hugo Chavez invents new half-hour time zone By Jeremy McDermott, Latin America Correspondent Last Updated: 3:35pm GMT 09/12/2007 Venezuela has created its own, unique time zone on the orders of President Hugo Chavez, setting clocks back half an hour and putting the oil-rich nation out of step with its neighbours. "I don't care if they call me crazy, the new time will go ahead," said Mr Chavez. Hugo Chavez has already changed the national flag and coat of arms The president said the change would improve health, as the sun will rise before most Venezuelans get up ensuring all go...

No one would be surprised later this month, I suppose, if the editors of Time magazine were to announce they were putting Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris on their year-end cover as co-winners of the annual Person-of-the-Year award. Nobody, the editors would explain, had done more than these three pioneers during the year 2007 to encourage humankind to rethink its superstitious bondage to theism. Nobody had made it more legitimate to leave God out of the day-to-day discussion. Their widely published books, lectures, and debates—for better or for worse—were pacesetting and world changing. But if the editors of...

CAMP TAJI, Iraq, Nov. 29, 2007 – Army Staff Sgt. Rosie Threatt could have been lost in the group of her large family. She’s the fifth of six children, and her siblings have distinguished themselves by working in the medical, criminal justice and teaching fields. Staff Sgt. Rosie Threatt, senior human resources noncommissioned officer for 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, discusses personnel actions with New Orleans native Spc. Troy Halley, human resources information specialist, at Camp Taji, Iraq. Threatt, a Port Gibson, Miss., native, joined the Army in 1999 to get a college education and make a...

"Bewkes is not a magazine guy." Time Warner’s third quarter numbers were released recently, and while overall revenues rose nine percent over same period 2006—despite revenue declines from AOL—Time Inc.’s revenues were flat. Any gains in earnings were largely attributed to “non-magazine businesses, particularly Synapse,” a customer acquisition and management service subsidiary of Time Inc., according to company financials. The numbers form the backdrop of a pending change at the top as COO Jeffrey Bewkes is set to succeed Dick Parsons as Time Warner CEO on January 1 and ongoing speculation about whether the company will spin off one or...

Nov 8 2007 2:56PM EST Al Gore Favorite to be 'Time' Person of the Year Rush Limbaugh might as well take a nitroglycerin tablet right now, because it sounds like Al Gore is going to be Time's person of the year for 2007. Three of the five panelists at the newsweekly's annual discussion -- Brian Williams, Whoopi Goldberg and MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe -- nominated either the former vice president or the green movement he champions to be this year's honoree. And Time's managing editor, Rick Stengel, told me afterwards that he'd polled his staff and found Gore to be...

Here we go again with another ridiculous MSM report of a so-called "lifelong Republican" who is slobbering all over himself for a Democrat presidential candidate, this time Barack Obama. And, also, here we go again as an MSM story tries to puff up a small handful of purportedly turncoat Republicans into gargantuan proportions -- the veritable mole-hill into a mountain story. This week's Republicans-gone-Dem story (for the MSM seems to have these weekly anymore) we are treated to Time Magazine's breathless report of ship-jumpers in Nebraska. Dave Filipi, a 48-year-old family doctor, made his way to the back room of...

The fact-pattern: Christianity Today publishes an article entitled "When to Separate What God has Joined: A Closer Reading on the Bible on Divorce" which attempted to revise the biblical teaching on these questions so that it could be reconciled to the modern prevalence of divorce in secular societies well as Evangelical circles. David Van Biema covers the story for Time magazine, and it has become one of the most popular articles being read on the Internet. My take: A false assumption plagues this piece from the outset (all underlining mine): Last month, the cover story of the monthly Christianity...

Dick Parsons is on the way out -- officially. Time Warner (TWX) , the world's largest media conglomerate, on Monday confirmed widespread speculation that Jeff Bewkes will take the reins from Parsons as CEO. The move is effective at the end of the year. Parsons will remain chairman of the company. The ascension of Bewkes, Time Warner's president and chief operating officer, to CEO has long been expected, but the timing was unclear. In recent weeks, speculation has heated up that the change would be in the near future. "Today's decision is the culmination of a thoughtful and disciplined process...

Two years after it successfully fought off the efforts of Carl Icahn and the plan authored by Lazard Frères to break apart Time Warner, the company seems ready to embrace it. While the timing of an expected change in the chief executive position has garnered a good deal of coverage of late, Time Warner has been moving ahead with a more important plan that would result in the split off of its majority ownership in Time Warner Cable and eventually include the spin-off of publishing and parts of its AOL unit. None of this will happen overnight, though it is...

Jeff Bewkes is poised to take over the reigns at one of the world's largest media groups as soon as next week Richard Parsons, the chief executive of Time Warner, is poised to announce that he will hand over the top job at the CNN to Harry Potter conglomerate to longstanding number two Jeff Bewkes. The announcement of the end of the African-American’s five and a half year tenure could come as soon as next week, after the matter was discussed at a board meeting in London on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Technically, no final decision was taken...

When we change our clocks Beginning in 2007, most of the United States begins Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday in March and reverts to standard time on the first Sunday in November. In the U.S., each time zone switches at a different time. In the European Union, Summer Time begins and ends at 1:00 a.m. Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time). It begins the last Sunday in March and ends the last Sunday in October. In the EU, all time zones change at the same moment. Spring forward, Fall back During DST, clocks are turned forward...

Source: University of Chicago Press Journals Date: October 4, 2007 When Taking A Long Time Is Seen As A Good Thing Science Daily — Consumers often use the length of time a service takes as a measure of its quality. The longer a session lasts, the better the value. Indeed, a new study shows that this holds true even when judging something primarily by its duration can backfire -- for example when a longer exercise program is actually less effective than a shorter regimen or for a lock-picking service. In a series of real-world and lab studies, the researchers reveal...