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Ode To Ribs The waitress says the man at Table Three is making noises. You’d think she would be used to grunting when the sun goes down at Melvin’s Rib Château, but this one’s whispering amen into his marinade, getting sauce all over his Armani. It could be he’s an escapee from a gated community of tofu burgers and arugula, having succeeded his way into a milieu of Pilates and Lipitor. Now he’s speaking in tongues, saying, Bring me another slab of mastodon, in Aramaic. It is the sound of a biblical digging-down. A rescue mission of smoked pig and...

Local Presbyterian churches won't be putting candles on a birthday cake for John Calvin--500 wouldn't fit anyway. But church members recognize the importance of July 10. Sunday school classes and study groups at the Presbyterian Church of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania Presbyterian Church have been reading the works of the man whose principles eventually founded the Presbyterian faith. "Calvin would be unimpressed that people were celebrating his birthday," said the Rev. Allen Fisher Jr. of the Presbyterian Church downtown, "but deeply edified that people were still reading his works." John Calvin was born July 10, 1509, in France. During his 55-year...

In 2007, a standoff unfolded between China and several American companies, including W.R. Grace, a major supplier of oil refining products. China was threatening to withhold supplies that keep refiners in business.

Chinese baby girls sold for adoption Published: July 2, 2009 at 11:55 PM As many as 80 newborn baby girls from China's southwest Guizhou Province were sold for adoption by foreign parents since 2001, a newspaper probe found. China Daily, quoting the Southern Metropolis News, said the babies were removed from their families by local officials in the province's Zhenyuan county. Most of them were handed over to foreign adoptive parents as orphans at a price of $3,000 each. The report said one poor farming couple, who are among the affected 80 families, had to hand over their fifth baby,...

Part III: A is AChapter V: Their Brothers’ Keepers SynopsisIn California a copper wire breaks on a Taggart phone line. The last replacement wire has been sold to black marketeers with government connections, and no one will report anything because of possible repercussions from those with pull. An employee calls Dagny in New York to report the break, and Dagny asks Eddie to have their Montana people ship copper wire to California. Jim says cryptically that there soon won’t be any problems with copper. Jim complains about an uncoordinated transportation policy. Dagny judges that the Rail Unification Plan has failed,...

China plans to extend its peacekeeping operations worldwide, said a senior military official today, as the nation completed its first joint peacekeeping military exercise with Mongolia in Beijing. Lieutenant-General Ma Xiaotian, deputy chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army, said the six-day drill was the first joint peacekeeping exercise China held with a foreign nation.

Here's my suggestion for the key topic she should be focused on: ENERGY. Outside of glaciers and polar bears, it's what Alaska is known for. It's also the area of Palin's greatest expertise. It also happens to be topic number one for most Americans. Every time they fill their gas tank, every time they pay their electric bills, every time they discuss "cap and trade," every time they see windmills on the horizon and know - in their hearts - that these ugly machines are not going to be the solution, they will think about Sarah Palin. She will talk...

Minnesota has been an unofficial testing ground for using ethanol to fuel vehicles, but after years of steady increases, interest appears to be waning. Despite a push from the governor and an increase in the number of so-called flexible-fuel vehicles on the road — which can run on either gasoline or a mostly ethanol blend — sales of E85 have dipped in recent months, beyond the normal decline in winter months. In February, sales of E85, a cleaner-burning fuel consisting of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, hit their lowest mark since 2006, according to a new report by...

Sunday (July 5) is "Call 2 Fall," a prayer rally organized by the Family Research Council. It is a call to Christians and their churches to take three to five minutes during the Sunday services, go to their knees, and pray for repentance and a return of America to moral greatness. Larry Stockstill of Bethany World Prayer Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is taking part. "There really isn't a new political agenda we can pull out of the hat or any other form of medicine for America," he states. "It's only prayer and fasting." Dr. Richard Land of the Ethics...

MICHÈLE A. FLOURNOY, one of the highest-ranking women in the history of the Pentagon, did not have a childhood that would immediately suggest a future as a defense policy intellectual who is rethinking how America fights its wars. Her mother was an actress and singer who performed at the Copacabana, the legendary New York nightclub, and was the understudy to Vivian Blaine in “Oklahoma!” on Broadway. Her father was a cinematography director in television at Paramount Studios. She is a 1979 graduate of Beverly Hills High School who spent her summers playing, she said, “a lot of beach volleyball.” But...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu0-i0OxhME On April 3, 2008, Jenny Sanford spoke at the Robert Dole Institute where the topic of discussion was "First Spouses: Changing Roles & Expectations". In the Q&A section she was asked about the Eliot Spitzer case... here is the audio of that... You can watch the whole video of this by searching for "Sanford" on this page: http://www.doleinstitute.com/video/2008/index.shtml

We all know that the signers of the Declaration of Independence put their lives and property at risk by their act of courage. The question is: who among politicians of the past 60 years would have done the same. I can think of only two. Ronald Reagan would have signed, no doubt, on grounds of principle above personal ambitions. Harry Truman might have done, but I think that it would depend upon when in his career he was asked to do it. Are there any others? Nominations, please.

Recently appointed ambassador to the United States Michael Oren warned over the weekend that an Iranian atomic bomb could "wipe Israel off the map in a matter of seconds," and that the Iranians could "accomplish in a matter of seconds what they denied Hitler did, and kill 6 million Jews, literally."

WASHINGTON - A civil rights group on whose board Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor served filed racial bias lawsuits over employment examinations that resemble a Connecticut case in which she ruled against white firefighters, documents released by the Senate show. The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund represented Hispanic sanitation workers in New York City who wanted to stop white employees from getting promotions because, they argued, the qualifying exam unfairly disadvantaged minorities. The case unfolded as Sotomayor chaired the organization's board of directors' litigation committee. The New York case bears strong similarities to a much-discussed lawsuit Sotomayor ruled...

Taliban insurgents stepped up attacks Friday against U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan's Helmand River valley, forcing troops in some areas to spend the day fighting instead of carrying out plans to meet with residents and local leaders. The stiffest resistance occurred in the district of Garmser, where Taliban fighters holed up in a walled housing compound engaged in an eight-hour gun battle with troops from the 2nd Battalion of the 8th Marine Regiment. The Marines eventually requested a Harrier fighter jet to drop a 500-pound bomb on the compound, which was believed to have killed all fighters inside. The commanders...

Rather than a blow to a career, Sarah Palin's decision to resign underlines her self-awareness, writes The Daily Beast's John Batchelor. She is now unmatched for the 2012 primary. The early excuse for the Republican circular firing squad of the holiday weekend is that Weekly Standard editor and party brainiac Bill Kristol claims that pugnacious McCain campaign enforcer Steve Schmidt has been caught gossiping to Vanity Fair’s Todd Purdum about Sarah Palin’s rambling and incoherent vice-presidential campaign last September and October...

After being asked when the public should begin judging the success of the nearly $800 billion stimulus plan, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs answered, "I think we should begin to judge it now." Let's take his advice. The administration warned that if we failed to support a stimulus package, unemployment would hit a dire 9 percent by 2010. With the stimulus, unemployment, it claimed, would stay in the 8 percent range.

There were lots of plausible presences at the La Vista Embassy Suites to oppose what many see as the worst livestock impacts of the federal government’s National Animal Identification System. The skeptical manager of the Bassett Livestock Auction, the indignant rancher from Valentine, the long-suffering hog producer from Minnesota — all seemed to have an obvious place in June 30 proceedings aimed at overhauling the program’s most objectionable features. Chris Bambery of Lincoln, proud owner of two chickens on Sumner Street and promoter of what he describes as “backyard chicken PowerPoint presentations,” didn’t blend in as easily. But it turns...

What was to have been a serious discussion Friday turned into a case of finger-pointing and accusations between a health care reform advocacy group and the staff of Republican Sen. Mike Johanns. Officials with Change That Works Nebraska accused members of Johanns’ staff of calling security guards to intimidate people set up outside a meeting to discuss health care — a charge Johanns’ office denies. The group’s director, Jane Kleeb, was invited by Johanns to participate in the round-table discussion on the University of Nebraska Medical Center campus. Kleeb, in turn, gathered a group of teachers, veterans and others to...

Here is powerful video from the exceptional John Adams series, in which John Adams makes his impassioned plea for freedom before the Continental Congress in 1776. After the brief speech, there is the reading of the Declaration of Independence the Congress passed, which we celebrate today! The words are amazingly profound and powerful, and provide a clarion call we need to return to as Americans today. Happy Independence Day!. . . . . (Watch Video)