Free Republic

Russia, China and the US have all called for calm after North Korea test-fired a series of missiles. Seven Scud-type ballistic missiles with a range of about 500km (312 miles) were fired in an apparent act of defiance against the US, on 4 July. Russia and China called on Pyongyang to return to talks, while a US official urged it not to aggravate tensions. North Korea is banned from all ballistic missile-related activities under UN sanctions. The sanctions were strengthened after the communist nation carried out a second underground nuclear test in May. North Korea has launched a number of...

Investigators have recovered the black box of downed “King of Pop” Michael Jackson, just hours before the search was to be called off. The pop singer’s voice and data recorder is designed to emit signals with an infectious beat for 30 days after an accident.

he boss of Steve Perkins, the broker at the heart of a rogue trading scandal that rocked oil markets this week, issued a bullish report suggesting prices could go higher only hours after Mr Perkins made the unauthorised trades that caused prices to spike. The disclosure raises further questions about internal controls at PVM Oil Associates, the world’s largest oil brokerage. The London-based firm, which revealed on Thursday it had lost $10m (€7.1m, £6.1m) as a result of trades by Mr Perkins, one of its senior brokers, said the trading report was sent to clients at 08.44 in London on...

Honduras rebuffed demands by the international community to reinstate President Manuel Zelaya and pulled out of the Organization of American States

Be honest, now: As we celebrate America's birth today, who among you will light a special sparkler for John Calvin? Don't all raise your hands at once. But some say we should celebrate the great Protestant reformer as an honorary Founding Father for his stalwart defense of law, ethics and religious liberty. Hmm, really? I suspect the sin-monitoring church police of Calvin's 16th-century Geneva strike most of us as more Taliban than American. Yet there is more of Calvin in our national and theological heritage than most of us know, or would care, to admit. I think it's time to...

Investigators have recovered the black box of downed “King of Pop” Michael Jackson, just hours before the search was to be called off. The pop singer’s voice and data recorder is designed to emit signals with an infectious beat for 30 days after an accident.

"And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family." (Leviticus 25:10)This verse is especially significant in American history as the verse from which the great exhortation was taken on the first Independence Day: "Proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof!" It has ever since been associated with the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, as Americans each year thank God for "the land...

(The murder of Don Bolles was to be a package deal including the murder of Al Lizanetz, Kemper Marley's public relations manager of 23 years. My interview of Lizanetz is available on audio tape. In this interview, Lizanetz states that land fraud king pin, Ned Warren was Kemper Marley's agent. Lizanetz tells how Marley recruited Eugene Pulliam to come to Arizona to start the Arizona Republic Newspaper. Pulliam formed the Phoenix Forty and the rest is history --- organized crime history. Lizanetz details how Marley's United Liquor General Manager, Gene Hensley (none other than Senator John McCain's father-in-law) went to...

Am I the only one outraged by the misinformation that has been spread around the internet as Obama's Exhibit "A" for healthcare reform??? The issue is the staged so called kidney cancer patient with no health insurance who supposedly had health insurance when she was again supposedly diagnosed with Renal Cell Carcinoma and rather than have her kidney removed which is the only effective treatment for kidney cancer, she was treated with radiation therapy which caused her more health issues now that she has no insurance. She claims that she did not have her kidney removed because she was caring...

Southern California's forest plan is in limbo following a recent court order declaring that it violates federal law, a finding that could impact measures being taken to manage the region's vast forestland and reduce the perennial danger of catastrophic fire. Last month, federal court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel in San Francisco said the plan governing operations and recreation on the San Bernardino, Cleveland, Angeles and Los Padres national forests lacks specifics about how activities such as off-road vehicle use and brush clearing might impact endangered plants and animals. The case remains open and the government is working to craft a...

"Palin is running for president, get used to it."

I expected the sky to fall after my July article linking the activities of Charles Keating and General Singlaub. Nothing happened. The reaction to my September article exposing Terry Burke, former top DEA in Arizona as a possible key element in the illegal narcotics network in Arizona, however, was immediate and unmistakable. Within days of my FAXing this story I was served with a court summons, a nasty death threat was left on my answering machine and my offices were entered, my files, book cases and furniture dumped and overturned. Read the full article at - http://www.hiddenmysteries.org/conspiracy/reststory/kempermarly.html

Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington -- The Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center, a job-training facility in one of Los Angeles' poorest neighborhoods, is threatened with receiving no federal money at a time of high unemployment -- simply because of its name. The center has become a victim of a move on Capitol Hill to block funding for projects that bear the monikers of sitting lawmakers. "It doesn't seem fair that rich private entities can get funded and this poor school cannot," said Rep. Waters (D-Los Angeles), who had a heated confrontation with Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey (D-Wis.)...

Perhaps it is time to reflect back in our history for a moment to remember from where we came, and to where we are headed under this “administration.” Today as America approaches our 233rd birthday, perhaps it is time to reflect back in our history for a moment to remember from where we came, and where we are headed under this “administration.” No patch of land in America is more symbolic of the sacrifices our forefathers made to create this nation than the rolling hills overlooking Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Standing upon these hills today you can imagine the brutal winter...

"We owe our soul to the Welfare State" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkmLL_WjI2k

On July 3rd, Sarah Palin, once again, turned the Main Stream Media pundits, the liberal policiticians, and the political establishment in Washington DC on their ear. Talk again is abuzz, "What will Sarah do?" I listened to her entire announcement. It was honorable, it was direct, and it punctuated the insane politics of our day...it also punctuated her personal commitment to fight for conservative principles and candidates...to fight for America, and to do so when it would not distract further from her job as Governor and the foundation she has built there. I am proud of her and support...

The health zealots at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), a close ally of the food cops at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, have come out with the 2009 version of their obesity report card, grading America “F as in Fat.” But once again, the weight police ignored the opportunity to examine the whys behind increasing obesity rates before assigning the country a failing grade.From the report: Mississippi had the highest rate of adult obesity at 32.5 percent, making it the fifth year in a row that the state topped the list. Four states now have rates...

One day in October 1778 as an 18 year old, my 4th great grandfather, picked up his gun and reported for duty with the 8th Albany Militia. He and his fellow citizen- soldiers went into battle against the mighty British Army which was backed up by a large number of Indians. They had no training. All they had was a burning desire to live free and a willingness to back it up with their lives if need be. And that “need be” came later in the week when they faced the British and their Indians at the Battle of Fort...

Since the publication of Rahmstorf et al 2007, a highly influential comparison of models to observations, David Stockwell has made a concerted effort to figure out how Rahmstorf smoothing worked. I now have a copy of the program and have worked through the linear algebra. It turns out that Rahmstorf has pulled an elaborate practical joke on the Community, as I'll show below. It must have taken all of Rahmstorf's will-power to have kept the joke to himself for so long and the punch-line (see below) is worth savoring.

Eleven score and twelve years ago, 56 founders of this great nation signed a document freeing the United States from British tyranny and establishing national pride of independence and freedom that George Washington would reaffirm during his farewell address when he said: “The name of American which belongs to you, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism” and, “Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the Union of the whole.” A nation was born from the wilderness that would in the coming years feed the world, give charitably and abundantly...