Free Republic

WASHINGTON, March 4, 2009 – The Veterans of Foreign Wars will sponsor eight Purple Heart recipients who served in the Persian Gulf, Iraq or Afghanistan wars in the Annual Veterans Golf Classic in Myrtle Beach, S.C. The trip, May 17 to 20, will include free airfare, hotel accommodations and the tournament entry fee for each winner. Players must have a U.S. Golf Association slope handicap or be able to validate five or six of their most recent scores to be eligible. Meals will be included, and family members may attend at their own expense. This will be the first...

JERUSALEM (AP) — The British Embassy in Israel has canceled plans to relocate to new offices because one of the owners is believed to be involved in building Jewish settlements in the West Bank, an official said on Wednesday. Spokeswoman Karen Kaufman said the embassy had planned to move to the high-rise Kirya Tower in Tel Aviv, partly owned by real estate company Africa-Israel Investments Ltd., but the ambassador, Tom Phillips, decided not to move last month. "No leases were signed, and part of the reason was we looked into the issue of Africa-Israel and settlements and settlement holdings and...

Horsepower can be so overrated. At least that’s what the developers from HumanCar, an industrial design firm, are betting on with the Imagine_PS, or Power Station, vehicle. The vehicle uses electric motors and regenerative braking along with human power to keep it moving at a decent clip. “The human part is a patented bi-directional human-power interface, which is like a rowing action that uses your entire body,” says Chuck Greenwood, CEO. “One to four people can operate these cars and they create enough electricity by themselves to power computers, cell phones, etc.” He claims that the car is able to...

A woman accused of killing the girlfriend and unborn child of ex-Bears star Shaun Gayle was arrested after a friend of hers agreed to wear a wire and recorded the woman admitting to committing the murders, authorities said today. The recordings finally led to a break in the October 2007 murders: Marni Kay Yang, 41, of the 5000 block of North St. Louis Avenue in Chicago, is charged with fatally shooting Gayle's girlfriend Rhoni Reuter and their unborn child, authorities said this afternoon. Lake County State's Atty. Michael Waller said Yang's friend "was instrumental in solving the case" by becoming...

WASHINGTON, March 4, 2009 – Through its investor education foundation, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA, is helping military spouses become accredited as financial counselors. The foundation’s “Military Spouse Fellowship Program” has been providing military spouses the means to earn the accredited financial counselor designation since 2006, John Gannon, the foundation’s president, said. Military spouses who are accredited financial counselors can be a wealth of financial information for servicemembers and military families as the country faces a challenging economy, Gannon noted. “What we’re trying to achieve with our spouse fellowship program is … [to] provide an additional resource...

Since the appointment of Chas Freeman as director of the NIC was announced two weeks ago his recent career has called into question his fitness to serve in the this key intelligence position. Ambassador Freeman's relationship with the Saudi royal family has motivated him to express views that go way beyond the range of normal his views go way beyond the range of normal. Freeman runs a magazine that among other things claims the Iraq war was waged to help Israel. He subscribes the the "Walt and Mearsheimer contention that the Israel Lobby (a nice way of saying Jews) control...

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan , March 4, 2009 – Task Force Spartan soldiers with the 10th Mountain Division’s 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, have been working closely with the local populace and security forces in Afghanistan’s Vardak province since their deployment to Regional Command East two months ago. The “Catamount” battalion has had recent success with the Afghan security forces in the province’s Jalrez and Sayed Abad districts. This partnership signifies a commitment to helping the Afghan government become better connected with outlying provinces, officials said. Team Comanche, whose area of operations extends into eastern Vardak, conducts daily patrols over rugged...

Pastoral Ministry: Worthy to Lead Paul, an apostle (not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead).... --Galatians 1:1 Conformity to the Word of God is always right, but obedience to religious leaders is good only if those leaders prove themselves worthy to lead. Leadership in the church of Christ is a spiritual thing and should be so understood by everyone. It takes more than a ballot to make a leader.... If the church is to prosper spiritually she must have spiritual leadership, not leadership by majority vote. It...

After months of deliberation, the pre-trial chamber judges finally decided to issue the warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity for alleged atrocities committed in the Darfur region of Sudan. The question now is what will happen next? The stakes could not be higher. On the one hand supporters of the global court will be hoping that the arrest warrant will be enough to persuade Sudan's politicians to hand the country's leader over. Over the last few months rumours that a coup is on the cards have been circulating around Khartoum. But insiders say that senior members of the...

When God Doesn't Hear March 4, 2009  "Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear." (Isaiah 59:1-2)  People often complain that God doesn't hear their prayers, especially when God does not respond in the way they would like. But He can hear, all right! "He that planted the ear, shall he not hear?" He even hears our thoughts. "Thou knowest . . . my...

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, March 4, 2009 – Three contractors suffered minor injuries in a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attack this afternoon near Bagram Airfield, Combined Joint Task Force 101 officials said today. The attack occurred outside the perimeter of the base when a vehicle exploded near an entry control point. The driver, who was carrying explosives, abandoned the vehicle before it detonated. The explosive he was carrying detonated as he ran away from the vehicle. The attacker was killed in the second explosion. It is unknown if there were additional personnel in the vehicle. No military or Afghan civilian...

Mr. President, Americans think you're the man. President Obama is more popular than ever, according to a new poll that shows two-thirds of the country feels "hopeful" about Obama's leadership. Obama now has a 60% approval rating, and people feel things are looking up since he took office, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. The percentage of those who say the country's "headed in the right direction" has skyrocketed compared to the number who felt that way before Obama took office. Now, 41% of Americans say the country's going the right way, compared to 26% who thought...

SANTA ANA (CBS) ― Click to enlarge A shake and some rattled nerves. What was it? Who knows. The investigation continues. AP 1 of 1 Close numSlides of totalImages As mysteries go, it might not rank up there with "What happened to Amelia Earhart?" or "Did Oswald act alone?" but a strange rattling, shaking, and quaking got people in Orange County all shook up yesterday evening...and we can tell you this much, it wasn't an Elvis sighting either. We are used to earthquakes in the Southland, but this was no quake either! Or a sonic boom. We are used to...

FORT HUACHUCA — One of the legends in the enlisted military intelligence community honored a young soldier on Tuesday afternoon. Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Douglass S. Russell presented the award named after him to 23-year-old Sgt. Julian M. Jones at a ceremony in Fitch Auditorium, where a worldwide conference of senior intelligence noncommissioned officers is being held this week. Deciding who would receive the 2009 Command Sgt. Maj. Doug Russell Award was difficult, said Command Sgt. Maj. Gerardus Wykoff, who is the Military Intelligence Corps, Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca senior NCO. There were eight candidates for the honor, which...

Posted by: Jeremy Pelofsky Tags: Front Row Washington, Iowa, pigs, Tom Coburn, Tom Harkin Some might think it would be hard to defend spending $1.8 million on researching how to deal with the odor from pig manure, but Senator Tom Harkin found it pretty easy to do. Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, succeeded in getting the funds included in the $410 billion omnibus spending bill that is pending in the Senate, drawing protests from some like Senator John McCain that it is wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars. “I’m sure that David Letterman will probably be talking about it and Jay Leno...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More poor children should be allowed to eat for free at school and the government should pay higher reimbursement rates for school meals, a school food service group said at a U.S. Senate hearing on Wednesday. The School Nutrition Association also endorsed a proposal that any food or beverage sold at school, even from vending machines, must comply with U.S. nutrition standards. Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, whose committee oversees public nutrition, told reporters on Tuesday he liked the idea of standards for vending machine snacks at schools. An array of child nutrition programs including school lunch...

The political left hated George Bush - mainly because of the Iraq war. When Barack Obama was elected to office, they got their guy who would deliver Hope and Change to Iraq, to America, and to the world. How's that working out? Jon Stewart has the details...

FORT HUACHUCA — A soldier returning from a 15-month deployment was hurried off a civilian contract plane Tuesday morning and immediately taken to the Sierra Vista Regional Health Center. It wasn’t that Sgt. Jamal Smith was ailing. He wasn’t. His wife, Cherrelle, also an Army sergeant, was in the hospital in labor to deliver the couple’s first child. Smith was one of more than 225 soldiers of the 40th Expeditionary Signal Battalion returning to the post after most served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Qatar for 15 months. The first group of 314 battalion soldiers arrived on the fort Monday...

WWW.ANNCOULTER.COM OLBERMANN'S PLASTIC IVY by Ann Coulter March 4, 2009 Fortunately, we have Keith Olbermann to point out that Rush Limbaugh did not accurately quote the preamble to the Constitution in his CPAC speech last weekend. I'm not sure what scam Olbermann imagined Rush was trying to put over on the American people by saying conservatives believed in the "preamble to the Constitution" and then quoting words from the Declaration of Independence -- but Olbermann put an end to that cruel deception!  These small-time opportunities to show off by correcting someone else's teeny-tiny mistakes are the lifeblood of Olbermann's MSNBC...

The Obama administration on Wednesday renewed its request that the Supreme Court drop the case of a suspected al-Qaida sleeper agent and not rule on whether a president can indefinitely detain terror suspects in the United States. In papers filed to the court, government lawyers say the case of Ali al-Marri should be dismissed because he has now been charged in civilian criminal court. Acting Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler said for the justices to make a finding in the case would "render a hypothetical pronouncement that would not affect the legal rights of (al-Marri) or any other person." Al-Marri's claim...