Free Republic

You can't say this new administration isn't changing Washington. Because politically, the nation's capital is starting to look a lot like Chicago on the Potomac, complete with the sleazy deals and subsequent embarrassment. We're supposed to believe that any resemblance between the goings-on in the Windy City, whose civic culture is legendary for its, uh, ethical flexibility, and the current process of picking a Cabinet is purely coincidental. Just because the new president came out of the Daley machine, and had his own ethical problems before he became the Hope of the World, doesn't mean Barack Obama can't reform Washington....

Biden taps reporter's chest, tells him, 'you need to work on your pecs'... Developing... Idunno...Drudge seems to think it's more important than nObama and the Logan Act.

What women really want: a touch on the arm By Laura Clout Last Updated: 1:42AM BST 21/06/2008 Scientists have come up with a winning formula for men wishing to seduce women, and it has nothing to do with cheesy chat-up lines or good looks. Research shows that a man can significantly increase his pulling power by simply catching a woman's eye and lightly touching her arm. A study at Aberdeen University found that two-thirds of women agreed to dance with a man who rested his hand on her arm for a second or two while making the request. When the...

The biggest fiction behind James Bond is that the fantasy master spy and world-class heartbreaker lived past 40-something. It’s not just the death traps and vodka martinis, or even the three packs of cigarettes a day, that would have shortened his life. His naked ring finger would have too. Because real men need wives. Consider the data: Married men—regardless of age, sex, race, income or education—consistently have been found to be healthier than men who are single, divorced or widowed. This so-called “marriage benefit” begins to kick in right after the wedding, then builds. Husbands ages 18 to 44 are...

NASHVILLE, Tenn., May 29, 2006 – When the Air Force 332nd Recruiting Squadron got the chance to provide a color guard for the Grand Ole Opry's Memorial Day weekend All-American Salute Signature Shows, the airmen were happy to oblige. "I thought it was awesome to get to see all these country stars," Tech. Sgt. Kimberly Haugen said backstage between the 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. shows. "Everyone spoke to me, and they thanked me for doing time in the service. It's amazing how many people here have been in the Air Force or the Army or the Marines or whatever." Haugen,...

GULFPORT, Mississippi, Nov. 1, 2005 - Through the efforts of Operation Homelink, personnel stationed at Naval Construction Battalion Center, Gulfport, were able to receive 100 free, refurbished computers. The PCs, which are valued at more than $30,000, were given away during a four-hour period Oct. 28 to military families impacted by Hurricane Katrina, particularly those who have a service member preparing to deploy overseas. “This is an outstanding opportunity for our troops who suffered loss,” said Cmdr. Rodney Duggins, supply officer at the Seabee base. Northrop Grumman, one of the government’s largest providers of information technology systems and services, donated...

Review of: Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection by Deborah Blum Berkley, 2004 360 pp., $16, paper Science is often at odds with common sense... [T]he most striking counterexample ...would have to be the early 20th-century conviction that physical affection, human contact, and love were irrelevant to infants. For a rather long period of time, the psychology of early childhood went completely off the rails .... More than half of the unhappy orphans assigned to an institution in Buffalo between 1862 and 1875 died before the age of one...Convinced that the deaths were the result...

The Gold and the Glory by Ron Wood Meri Burlingame Mar 5, 2005 [Some added paragraphing; BOLD & COLOR emphases by Quix] The Gold and the Glory by Ron Wood TOUCHED BY GRACE HERE: http://www.touchedbygrace.org I am passing along to you the following account from Chuck Pierce. It details a supernatural manifestation of God's presence among worshipping, penitent people. I say "penitent," because only when we get low and humble ourselves, does God disclose his glory. I was in a similar supernatural setting among intercessors seeking God's intervention in our nation's election in Waco, Texas, in November 2004. We prostrated...

Florida GOP apologizes for warning Tallahassee, FL, Jul. 30 (UPI) -- The Florida GOP has apologized for sending out a flier contradicting the views of Republican Gov. Jeb Bush on the upcoming elections. The fliers were sent to Republican voters in southern and western Miami-Dade County advising them to use absentee ballots rather than trust the new touch-screen voting machines, The Miami Herald reported Friday. Bush and Secretary of State Glenda Hood have been reassuring voters for months that the new voting machines now used in the state's 15 larger counties are reliable.

Electronic skin could give machines a sophisticated sense of touch. A flexible friend: rubber polymers form the basis of an electronic skin.© Takao Someya Group Robots are about to get more feeling. An electronic skin as sensitive to touch as our own is being developed by scientists in Japan."Recognition of tactile information will be very important for future generations of robots," says Takao Someya at the University of Tokyo who developed the skin. A sense of touch would help them to identify objects, carry out delicate tasks and avoid collisions. But while a lot of effort has gone into vision...

Robots are about to get more feeling. An electronic skin as sensitive to touch as our own is being developed by scientists in Japan. "Recognition of tactile information will be very important for future generations of robots," says Takao Someya at the University of Tokyo who developed the skin. A sense of touch would help them to identify objects, carry out delicate tasks and avoid collisions. But while a lot of effort has gone into vision and voice recognition for robots, touch sensitivity is still fairly rudimentary. Our own skin contains a battery of touch receptors that produce nerve signals...

Less than two years after spending $17 million to replace Broward County's election system, county commissioners expressed growing apprehension Tuesday about electronic voting and decided to rethink what they had done. Commissioners ordered their staff to explore retrofitting the new touch-screen voting machines to print copies of each ballot or ditching the machinery in favor of paper ballots read by optical scanners. They want the study completed in the next couple of months so they can make any changes before next year's presidential elections. The ATM-style touch screens replaced the punch-card ballots that were banned in Florida after the 2000...