Free Republic

Did a Comet Trigger The Great Chicago Fire? By Irene Mona Klotz, Discovery News The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 March 5, 2004 — Perhaps it was not Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern that sparked the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed the downtown area and claimed 300 lives. New research lends credence to an alternative explanation: The fire, along with less-publicized and even more deadly blazes the same night in upstate Wisconsin and Michigan, was the result of a comet fragment crashing into Earth's atmosphere. The comet theory has been around — and most often discarded...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has a new target in the revived cold war with Washington — the U.S. dollar. The website Russia Today* reported Tuesday that Mr. Putin has drafted a bill to block the use of both the American greenback and the euro in trade between the bloc of countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union, including Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. The measure “would help expand the use of national currencies in foreign trade payments and financial services and thus create preconditions for greater liquidity of domestic currency markets,” the Kremlin said in a...

Despite low oil prices, Saudi Arabia is maintaining its investment in its oil industry. Saudi Aramco Chairman Khalid Al-Falih indicated in March that Saudi Aramco would not cut investment. James Crandell, a Cowen & Co. oil analyst cited in this article, who has tracked oil companies’ budgets for many years, estimates that Aramco and its Kuwaiti and UAE counterparts will increase their investment in oil exploration and production in 2015 by 4.5 percent to $38.1 billion. (If proportional to output, the Saudi share would be $24.5 billion). On it’s website, the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) identifies Saudi Arabia...

American Newspaper Article, Circa 1863: On the Influence of the Semitic Races in the History of Civilization On the Influence of the Semitic Races in the History of CivilizationBy Ernest Renan Posted in The Herald of Progress No. 198,Pages 5 & 6 Dated: December 05, 1863Select quotes: "The Arab, at least, and in a more general sense the Mussulman, are today further removed from us than they have ever been. The Mussulman (the Semitic spirit is especially represented in our day by Islam), and the European are, in the presence of one another, two beings of a different spe­cies,...

Read Secretary of State Kerry's eloquent words on National Puke Day U.S. Department of State "For more than half a century, #USCuba relations have been suspended in the amber of Cold War politics." - Secretary Kerry delivering remarks at the Flag Raising Ceremony at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, August 14, 2015 We have been suspended in AMBER as it relates to Castro's prison island.

Part One – Targeted Harvesting “Never again” were two solemn words associated with one of the most tragic times in history when Nazi Germany under the Third Reich systematically committed genocide with the extermination of six million Jewish men, women, and children. The butchery reached into Germany’s anatomical institutes where tens of thousands of Jews and political dissidents found themselves or their executed corpses dissected, burned, frozen, or dismembered in the name of science and the eugenics in advancing a superior race. “Again” is one word we now hear following a number of stealth videos revealing leading Planned Parenthood (PP)...

Interstate 11 is getting another boost with execution of a memorandum of understanding between Arizona and Mexico. One of the four international cooperation agreements to be signed by Gov. Doug Ducey and the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs Jose Antonio Meade extends I-11 from Nogales into Mexico to Hermosillo and Mexico City. The international commerce corridor MOU grew out of a conversation between Arizona business leaders, Ducey and Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim at the Phoenix Business Journal’s Global Market Discovery series earlier this year. People on the Move Victor Foggie Victor Foggie Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Arizona Brian...

DENVER (CBS4) – An alert has been issued by the FBI to all law enforcement agencies in Colorado and Wyoming involving U.S. military families and concerns about who may be watching them. The alert says Middle Eastern men are approaching families of U.S. military members at their homes in Colorado and Wyoming. It mentions Greeley and Cheyenne, Wyoming as the specific areas. In one case last May the wife of a military member was approached in front of her home by two Middle Eastern males. The men stated that she was the wife of a U.S. interrogator. When she denied...

Planned Parenthood survived a procedural vote Monday in the U.S. Senate on a bill to defund the organization, after a series of undercover videos emerged to suggest that the organization may have been willing to sell fetal organs from late-term abortions to tissue companies. The vote for cloture was 53-46, meaning that it fell well shy of the 60 votes needed to end debate and proceed to a vote. The vote was largely along partisan lines, with Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) 28% crossing over to vote with Democrats, and Sens. Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) 7% and Joe Manchin (D-WV) voting...

Beware the perils of a ‘Little Britain’ and a ‘Little Japan’ by Yoichi Funabashi Jul 10, 2015 Article history Japan and Britain have responded in completely different ways to the China-led initiative to create the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which the United States has opted not to join. In a rebuff to the U.S., Britain was the first Group of Seven member to announce that it would join the AIIB as a founding member. Out of courtesy, Britain informed the U.S. government of its intention just one day before its official announcement. Some within the U.S. government are still...

In the first quarter of 2014, the government sent shivers through global financial markets by reporting a recession-like contraction in the U.S. economy of 2.1 percent. Despite severe winter storms and record-breaking cold, economists still could not account for the deep plunge in growth. Even Federal Reserve officials worried something worse than just the effects of bad weather could be amiss in the economy. Turns out, it was the data itself and how the government calculates gross domestic product that were actually amiss. The Bureau of Economic Analysis, the federal agency responsible for GDP, now says growth was actually 1.2...

Urdu document passed to U.S. media by Pakistani with links to the Taliban Preparations underway to attack India as a way of enticing U.S. into battle Urges Taliban factions to join with ISIS in bid to form a worldwide caliphate Worldwide caliphate will 'behead every person that rebels against Allah' U.S. intelligence officials say they believe the document is authenticA recruitment document understood to be written by ISIS militants has revealed the terrorist group's plans for all-out war to bring about 'the end of the world'. The Urdu document, passed to the American Media Institute by a Pakistani citizen...

Just read a very interesting article from an author regarding the United States in biblical prophecy. The article is long but I'll sum up his claims this way. He claims that the United States is actually the 'Israel' mentioned in the Bible. And that modern day Israel should actually be known as Judah. If his claims are correct this would change the way we view prophecy as well. Especially Russia's invasion. This would mean Russia would invade modern day United States, not Israel. Ezekiel 38:17 states that the “Gog-Magog” prophecy of Ezekiel 38-39 has parallel biblical prophecies about this same...

Iran: ‘All our goals materialized’ under deal The United States and other world powers will help to teach Iran how to thwart and detect threats to its nuclear program, according to the parameters of a deal reached Tuesday to rein in Iran’s contested nuclear program. Under the terms of a deal that provides Iran billions of dollars in sanctions relief, Iran and global powers will cooperate to help teach Iran how to manage its nuclear infrastructure, which will largely remain in tact under the deal. Senior Iranian officials, including the country’s president, celebrated the deal as a victory for the...

Global Reset Soon? Let's recap the anomalies in the the last 24 hours. 1) Pope calls for one world government. 2) Chinese stock trading halted. 3) U.S. stock exchange halted. 4) Banks closed in Greece. 5) US mint suspends sale of American Eagle coins. 6) United Airlines flights grounded. 7) Web sites like Wall Street Journal (financial web site) and Zerohedge (financial web site) shut down. 8) Possible Cyber Attack? Feel free to add to the list. Can we connect the dots, or is this just a coincidence?

Latinos are one of the fastest growing groups in the Muslim religion. The Pew Research Center says about six percent of American Muslims are Latino. And women make up a little more than half of the new converts -- the people who have changed their religion to Islam. On a recent Friday, men listened to their imam at Masjid Miami Gardens in Miami, Florida. This clergyman spoke about forgiveness. On the upper level of the Gardens, the women watch through glass. They hear the imam through a monitoring system. This is the world that Greisa Torres entered four years ago....

HAVANA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and Cuba are set to announce the restoration of diplomatic relations on Wednesday, the result of a two-year courtship between former Cold War rivals who severed ties in 1961. The chief of the U.S. interests section in Havana will report to Cuban foreign ministry around 9 a.m. (0900 ET) to deliver a letter from U.S. President Barack Obama to Cuban President Raul Castro. Obama will then speak at 11 a.m. (1100 ET) from the White House's ceremonial Rose Garden. It was unknown whether Castro would reciprocate with comments of his own. Following 18 months...

The data for these numbers has been gathered from two sources.  From 1945 to 1987, the data was taken from "Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America" by Gary Kleck, Table 2.1.   The methodology used by Kleck was applied to  the figures obtained from the ATF for later years.  The number shown is the cumulative addition of domestic manufacture plus imports minus exports.  This does not count guns shipped to the U.S. military.   The figures are rounded to the nearest million. Kleck attributes the 1945 - 1968 numbers to Newton and Zimring, which includes the calculation of the 1945...

Something is coming. I don’t know what. But we must be ready. Here’s the key question: Is America heading towards a terrible implosion or a great awakening? I feel a tremendous sense of urgency about this column. The United States is hurtling towards severe trouble, and the events of the past few months — and what may be coming over the next few months — grieves me a great deal. Something is coming. I don’t know what. But we all must be ready in every possible way. Consider where we are in the summer of 2015: •Violence is exploding in...

.S.-majority-owned multinational enterprises employed 1,106,700 in Mexico in 2012 (the latest year on record), according to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, but Mexican-majority owned enterprises employed only 68,800 in the United States that year. That means that U.S.-controlled multinationals employed 1,037,900 more people in Mexico than Mexican-controlled multinationals employed in the United States. Put another way, multinational enterprises that had a majority U.S. ownership employed 16 times as many people in Mexico as Mexican-controlled multinationals employed in the United States. Forty-nine percent of the jobs--546,500 of 1,106,700--that U.S.-controlled multinationals maintained in Mexico in 2012 were in...