Free Republic

DENVER (AP) - Union officials in Colorado say a Qwest supervisor tried to cut down on lengthy bathroom breaks by telling workmen to use disposable urinal bags in the field. The manager distributed the bags to 25 male field technicians, telling them not to waste time leaving a job site to search for a public bathroom, the Rocky Mountain News reported Thursday. "We deal with a lot of silliness in corporate America, but you've got to admit, it takes the freakin' cake," Reed Roberts, an administrative director at the Communications Workers of America District 7, told the newspaper. Roberts did...

The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. and President Bill Clinton at a prayer breakfast at the White House in September 1998. During one of the most difficult periods in the presidency of Bill Clinton, he addressed a group of clerics at an annual prayer breakfast in September 1998 just as the Starr report outlining his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky was about to be published. Among those in attendance, was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., who is seen shaking hands with Mr. Clinton in a photograph provided today by the Obama campaign. Mr. Wright’s relationship with Senator Barack Obama, as his...

Gas lines in China go have a look.

Not everyone is vulnerable to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)--the extreme anxiety, depression, and nightmares that can follow a harrowing event. Although some people develop symptoms after seemingly minor traumas, others can handle wars, hurricanes, or various forms of physical abuse without losing their emotional balance. Now, researchers have shown that mutations in a stress-related gene may help determine whether someone who suffered from abuse as a child is susceptible to PTSD later in life. Teasing out the genetics of PTSD has been difficult. Children who are abused are more susceptible to PTSD as adults, and researchers estimate that up to...

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the nation's only Hispanic governor, is endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president, calling him a "once-in-a- lifetime leader" who can unite the nation and restore America's international leadership. Richardson, who dropped out of the Democratic race in January, is to appear with Obama on Friday at a campaign event in Portland, Ore., The Associated Press has learned. The governor's endorsement comes as Obama leads among delegates selected at primaries and caucuses but with national public opinion polling showing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton pulling ahead of him amid controversy over statements by his former pastor. Richardson...

Over the years, investors in Russia have grown accustomed to the unexpected. Often, just when things seem to have calmed down, the next bombshell is right around the corner. That's surely the only way to describe the extraordinary news that a manager from TNK-BP, British Petroleum's Russian joint venture, and his brother, who works for the British Council, have been arrested and accused of spying. The arrests came less than three weeks after Russia's election of a new President, Dmitry Medvedev, which seemed to send a reassuring message of liberalism and stability (BusinessWeek.com, 3/3/08). Remarkably, they also occurred just one...

Japanese scientists believe another planet, up to two-thirds the size of Earth, is orbiting in the far reaches of the Solar System... "Because of the very cold temperature, its surface would be covered with ice, icy ammonia and methane," said lead researcher Tadashi Mukai. The study by Mukai and co-worker Patryk Lykawka will be published in the April issue of the Astronomical Journal. "The possibility is high that a yet unknown, planet-class celestial body, measuring 30 per cent to 70 per cent of the Earth's mass, exists in the outer edges of the Solar System," says a statement released by...

For years, scientists have been proclaiming the benefits of exercise. Studies showing that regular exercise benefits human health have exploded in number, examining many health problems ranging from cancer and diabetes to arthritis and pre-mature death. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has found direct evidence to support the claim of the Centers for Disease Control that a reduction in daily physical activity is an actual cause of many of the risk factors for chronic diseases, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The research team also found that it only takes about two weeks of reduced activity for individuals to start...

WASHINGTON -- The beauty of a speech is that you don't just give the answers, you provide your own questions. "Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes." So said Barack Obama, in his Philadelphia speech about his pastor, friend, mentor and spiritual adviser of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright. An interesting, if belated, admission. But the more important question is: which "controversial" remarks? Wright's assertion from the pulpit that the U.S. government invented the HIV virus "as a means of genocide against people of color"? Wright's claim that America was...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States made a high-level plea Thursday to China to show restraint in Tibet and open talks with the Dalai Lama but said the unrest will not force President George W. Bush to miss the Olympics Games. Bush intends to visit Beijing for the Olympics in August because it is a sporting rather than a political event, but in making the trip, he will be able to speak his mind to President Hu Jintao, Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino said. Unlike other people, "he's able to speak very frankly to the Chinese president or the Russian president...

The Hague Prosecution learned while investigating war crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army against Serbs and other ethnic communities that people that disappeared in 1999 in Kosovo were subjected to surgery in which their kidneys and other organs were taken from them and then the smugglers were selling them to foreign clinics, Carla Del Ponte, former chief prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal wrote in her book ‘Hunt’. ‘The victims were most likely abducted after NATO bombing when international peace-keeping forces were already deployed in Kosovo’. Even high KLA members were involved in the operation of smuggling of organs, Del...

A new UC Berkeley study of San Francisco's 68 security cameras appears to indicate what many city officials have long suspected: The controversial devices perched at the city's roughest street corners don't have much of an effect on violent crime. The researchers examined 59,706 crimes occurring within 1,000 feet of the cameras between Jan. 1, 2005 and Jan. 28, 2008. While homicides within 250 feet of the cameras were down, they spiked in the areas 250 to 500 feet from the cameras - indicating people just moved down the street to kill each other. Other violent crimes had no change....

it's keith olberskunk but here is the video.

Plagiarizing the language of liberty and equality for socialism "I don't need Mr. Keyes lecturing me on Christianity. That's why I have a pastor." — Barack Obama By Tom Hoefling March 21, 2008 In 2004, Ambassador Alan Keyes acceded to the persistent pleas of Illinois Republicans to represent them in the U.S. Senate race against Democrat Barack Obama, only after being informed of Obama's history of callous disregard for innocent human life in blocking the legal protection of babies who had survived abortion attempts in that state's hospitals. Dr. Keyes, more than anyone in the country, saw the dangers...

Vice President Dick Cheney dismissed fears that Afghanistan could slide into a failed state, telling troops on Thursday that the U.S. and NATO allies will not allow resurgent extremists to bully their way back into power. More than 8,000 people died in Afghanistan last year, making it the most violent year since 2001 when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime after the Sept. 11 attacks. Taliban and al-Qaida fighters have regrouped, especially in the south, and the job of coordinating aid and NATO troops from scores of nations has proved daunting. "The Afghan people have no desire...

LOS ANGELES - The former Symbionese Liberation Army fugitive who hid for years by posing as an ordinary housewife has been released from prison after serving time for trying to bomb police cars, corrections officials said Thursday. Sara Jane Olson, formerly known as Kathleen Soliah, walked out of the Central Women's Facility in Chowchilla on Monday, said Bill Sessa, a state Department of Corrections spokesman. In 2001, Olson pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 14 years in prison for attempting to bomb police cars in 1975 with the SLA, the group best known for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst. Olson...

I just got this in my e-mail from Military.com. The thing looks like a huge bug. Looking at the thing reminded me of The Fly with Jeff Goldblum, which freaked me out.

The Rev. Al Sharpton is backing Barack Obama, but he's made the strategic decision to keep his support quiet. That's the message Sharpton delivered to his flock last Saturday as he boasted of talking to Obama "two or three times a week" - and insisted the Democratic front-runner knows the rev is in his camp. "I said, 'I'm gonna do whatever I gotta do to help you. Hillary Clinton has never done nothing for us,'" said Sharpton, recounting a conversation with Obama for his followers at his group's weekly rally. "'I won't either endorse you or not endorse you,'" Sharpton...

Oil drillers have their eye on a vast oil field in and around North Dakota, which promises a steady flow of domestic crude for years. A new black gold rush is under way, this time in North Dakota. The potential payoff is huge -- up to 100 billion barrels of oil. That’s twice the size of Alaska’s reserves and potentially enough to meet all U.S. oil needs for two decades. Until now, the obstacles to production seemed overwhelming. The crude oil is locked away in rocks that are buried miles underground in the Bakken Play, a field that stretches into...

It started life as the emblem of the British anti-nuclear movement but it has become an international sign for peace, and arguably the most widely used protest symbol in the world. It has also been adapted, attacked and commercialised. CND logo It had its first public outing 50 years ago on a chilly Good Friday as thousands of British anti-nuclear campaigners set off from London's Trafalgar Square on a 50-mile march to the weapons factory at Aldermaston. The demonstration had been organised by the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (DAC) and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) joined in....