Free Republic

A new article in the Journal of Experimental psychology makes the case that Sarah Palin's looks -- and the focus on them -- hurt her and John McCain in November's election.

Test you sniper abilities against Carlos and his buddy.

So what's the deal now with excerpts now? I see you're editing articles to one or two sentences even if they were excerpted by the poster to begin with. I thought 300 words was the excerpting standard.

I'm Jen O'Malley Dillon, the new Executive Director of the Democratic National Committee. If you're anything like me, then you've had the urge to talk back to a right-wing talk radio host more than a few times. Now you can. Rush Limbaugh has made waves lately about his desire to see President Obama fail. And he's unapologetic, even though Americans voted in November for the very kind of change the President is bringing to Washington. As even Limbaugh must know, if the President fails, America fails. Incredibly, Republican leaders have yet to condemn Limbaugh for his destructive comments. In fact,...

Artist's impression of Kepler's 3000 light-year target area: Artwork: Jon Lomberg What is the chance that alien life exists? Nasa's latest mission - the Kepler Space Telescope due to launch on Friday night to survey the heavens for Earth-like planets - could soon give us an answer. Kathryn Westcott asks four experts whether mankind prefers the idea of being alone and unique or whether we long for cosmic cousins.

Liberal Democrats define themselves by who they hateWorking class family with a 5-gallon tank flush toilet and a carbon emiting barbeque grill: BadMillionaire enviro hypocrites with a carbon footprint the size of a small African country, wrapping the globe in private jet contrails: GoodBankers who squander trillions of private investor money: BadPoliticians and government bureaucrats who squander trillions of taxpayer money: Good.Presidents Bush and Reagan: BadPresidents Carter and Obama: Good You get the picture. Every Us needs a Them. Every great movement needs a nemesis, someone to hate. In Orwell’s 1984, the people of Oceania hate Emmanuel Goldstein, traitor to...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says federal officials for years have only "talked and tinkered" over health care reform while problems have gone unresolved. Opening his conference on health-care, Obama complained that the soaring cost "now causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds." He was speaking Thursday to over a hundred experts and policymakers invited to the White House, including some who opposed the Clinton administration's health-care overhaul. Obama told the White House Forum on Health Reform: "We have tried and fallen short, stalled time and again by failures of will, or Washington politics, or industry lobbying." He said...

After watching friends and colleagues lose their jobs, their retirement savings and increasingly their hope, I've got only one thing to say to any state worker worried about paying more for their health insurance: Cry me a river. Here in Dane County, where a quarter of the workforce draws paychecks from the government, one can sense the growing rift between the public and private sector as the economy worsens. And we're doing better than just about everywhere else in Wisconsin. It's hard to name a business that hasn't felt the pinch. Nameplate firms from Erdman & Associates to Stoughton Trailers...

Missouri Representative Wayne Cooper (R-Camdenton) has introduced HJR 34. It has 15 Republican co-sponsors. It requires presidential candidates to submit a Birth Certificate to the Secretary of State, and says a certificate of live birth is not an adequate substitute. It also requires voters to show goverment Photo-ID at the polls, bans same-day registration, says the deadline for registering to vote will always be 4 weeks before an election, abolishes absentee voting unless the voter will be absent from the county or can establish illness, and says no one may be paid to register voters. This would all be one...

Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) has allegedly told a constituent that President Obama’s eligibility, his natural born status, has been decided twice by the voters. Senator Mel Martinez has laid the vetting of President Obama’s citizenship on the people of the United States. Does Congress assume responsibility of anything? The question of President Obama’s eligibility to be POTUS arose early in the election process. Congress, as a body, has been silent on the issue. For months, voters have received no information, and in fact, no one seems to know who vets a Presidential candidate. So, no one has. Now, it appears...

Pelosi on spending bill: Take it or leave it By Mike Soraghan Posted: 03/05/09 12:57 PM [ET] House Speaker Nancy Pelosi confirmed that if any changes are made to the omnibus spending bill in the Senate, she thinks Congress should scrap the effort and pass a continuing resolution to cover spending for the rest of the year. “That is the plan,” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference today. “If we started to open up that package, the changes would be endless.” Pelosi said the $410 billion omnibus spending bill was negotiated on a bipartisan basis before it was introduced...

People suffering from cancer, AIDS and other diseases could turn to marijuana for pain relief under a plan approved Wednesday by an Illinois House committee despite claims that it would be a step toward legalizing pot. Under the legislation, people with a doctor's permission would be eligible for a state registry card allowing up to seven marijuana plants in their homes and 2 ounces of "usable cannabis." The measure is written to expire after three years. Advocates say marijuana eases pain without the side effects of heavier drugs and reduces nausea from chemotherapy. "There is needless suffering going on out...

"Francisco's Money Speech" by Ayn Rand (August 30, 2002) "So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it...

I’m glad to report that I’m all charged up as a result of my column on Amnesty International (also known as Anti-Semitism International) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). That column ran yesterday in The Bulletin. In it, I showed that Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union are on a lower moral plane than the mass murderers and genocidal maniacs that make up Hamas and al-Qaida. At least the latter two admit their purposes. In its charter, for example, Hamas advocates the slaughter of innocents. So at least they have the honesty lacking in Amnesty International and...

Anyone who may have thought the death of Netscape would signal the end of the browser wars, boy were they mistaken. In fact, it could be argued that it was at that point it all began. It didn't take long for Mozilla's Firefox to emerge from Netscape Navigator's ashes, and over time, Firefox would win over enthusiasts with a potent combination of speed, security, and an unprecedented level of customization. But what started as a two-man battle is quickly growing into all-out warfare. Prepare to be overwhelmed by an onslaught of new browser releases in the coming months as Microsoft,...

<p>COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- "Joe the Plumber" is suing three former state officials in Ohio, saying they violated his privacy when they gathered personal information in a records search.</p> <p>Samuel J. Wurzelbacher says in the federal lawsuit filed Thursday that he suffered emotional distress, harassment, personal humiliation and embarrassment as a result of their actions. He's seeking unspecified punitive damages.</p>

STAR CITY (Moscow Region), March 5 (RIA Novosti) - A committee at Russia's space training center, Star City, announced the line up for the crew of the 19th Expedition to the International Space Station (ISS), a RIA Novosti correspondent said on Thursday. The ISS crew, comprising Russian Commander Gennady Padalka, U.S. Flight Engineer Michael Barratt, and American space tourist Charles Simonyi, one of the founders of Microsoft, will lift off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on board a Soyuz TMA-14 carrier rocket on March 26. This will be Hungarian-born Simonyi's second trip to the ISS as a space...

Some time ago I posted an entry on a new painting of the Little Flower by our friend Leonard Porter. Porter is at the forefront of the renewal of classical painting, and his image of Therese has garnered a lot of attention for its combination of Western naturalism and the transcendence of the Eastern tradition. So many people have been asking about the possibility of ordering a print that Leonard has made signed high-quality 11"x14" prints available on eBay by clicking here. Help support high quality sacred art!

Yesterday, congressional Republicans were suddenly enlivened and -- in the spirit of change -- unloaded on President Obama and his cabinet members. For the first time, House Republicans were encouraged to take the president on directly. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) yesterday in the Senate hearing on the Obama Budget unloaded on Geithner’s false premise that the deficit is all the fault of Republicans’ and the Bush administration. Grassley didn’t leave out Geithner’s role in TARP as head of the New York branch of the Fed, either. It’s about time somebody said it with an accompanying PowerPoint chart (and setting...

An explosion rocked downtown Bozeman Thursday morning, collapsing three buildings and prompting evacuation of a two-block area, officials said. Reports indicate the explosion happened at about 8:15 a.m. in the 200 block of Main Street. Crews were working to extinguish a fire caused by the explosion. Boodles restaurant and bar were destroyed, KBZK-TV reported. A police dispatcher said the adjacent Rocking R bar was also heavily damaged. Police evacuated the two blocks surrounding the businesses, housed in historic brick buildings. Jason Shrauger with Gallatin County Disaster and Emergency Services said it was unknown what caused the explosion or if...