Free Republic

Back-up: This week's NYSE Program Trading report was very odd: not only because program trading hit 48.6% of all NYSE trading, a record high at least since the NYSE keep tabs of this data, and a data point which in itself was startling enough to cause some serious red flags as I jaunt from village to village in what little is left of Europe's bison country, but what was shocking was the disappearance of the #1 mainstay of complete trading domination (i.e., Goldman Sachs) from not just the aforementioned #1 spot, but the entire complete list. In other words: Goldman...

MOBILE, Ala. — A woman who suffered third-degree burns after stepping into a shower of 136-degree water has been awarded $750,000 in a settlement of a lawsuit against the apartment manager. The Mobile County court award to 25-year-old Treon Moorer, in late June, followed mediation with JRS Management Inc. of Florida. The company's lawyer, Larry Matthews of Pensacola, declined comment. . . . He said Moorer was "horribly scarred" from the neck down. Taylor says the water heater industry and burn doctors recommend a setting of 120 degrees.

About 800 pages of the earliest surviving Christian Bible have been recovered and put on the internet. Visitors to the website www.codexsinaiticus.org can now see images of more than half of the 1,600-year-old Codex Sinaiticus manuscript. Fragments of the 4th Century document - written in Greek on parchment leaves - have been worked on by institutions in the UK, Germany, Egypt and Russia. Experts say it is "a window into the development of early Christianity".

A genuine outbreak of 2nd Amendment appreciation in Gaffney, South Carolina as residents are confronted by a Serial Killer who has murdered 5 people in six days. Perhaps the killer will hear the sound of gunfire as people target practice with their newly acquired weapons to prepare for his visit.

I pretty well nailed Governor Palin’s strategy when she announced. Today there is little doubt to what she intends to do: “I am now looking ahead and how we can advance this country together with our values of less government intervention, greater energy independence, stronger national security, and much-needed fiscal restraint,” the former Republican vice presidential candidate wrote in a posting on her Facebook page. Palin’s spokeswoman, Meghan Stapleton, confirmed Palin wrote the entry. One thing I did forget to mention in the previous post which is clear today - Palin is going to shove as much crow down as...

Grand Strand marketers turn eyes toward Europe. BY MIKE CHERNEY MYRTLE BEACH — When it comes to attracting foreign visitors to the Grand Strand, some local tourism leaders are looking to Congress for help. The Travel Promotion Act of 2009, which has been introduced in the House and Senate, would create a nonprofit corporation to advertise the U.S. as a travel destination in foreign countries. The campaign would be funded by industry contributions and a $10 fee on foreign travelers who do not have to pay for a visa. The travel industry, including the U.S. Travel Association and the American...

Vanity Fair's Todd Purdum joined Chuck Todd, filling in for Chris Matthews on Hardball, to discuss his recent article on Sarah Palin.

The debate about whether thoroughbreds should be treated with a diuretic on the day of a race became thornier Monday when researchers released a study showing that furosemide, known as Lasix, significantly reduces bleeding in horses’ lungs. Furosemide has been used to treat racehorses since the 1970s. Most countries ban race-day use of Lasix because it improves performance. In the United States, however, virtually every horse receives it on the day of the race. “The results of this study do not eliminate debate about the use of this medication in racehorses, but it does provide evidence needed to aid making...

Joe Biden told "This Week" that the Obama administration "misread how bad the economy was." He also the administration made this mistake because they just looked at the consensus forecasts at the time...and they proved to be wrong. If the latter is true, the administration deserves the crap it has been getting. In the months leading up to Obama's inauguration, the economy fell off a cliff. The credit markets seized up. Several major investment banks went bust. The Fed and Treasury talked of an apocalypse. Everywhere you looked, you heard one analyst after another saying the country was plunging toward...

Many Catholics just don’t know what to say when someone asks them whether they are saved. As Catholics, we're vaguely familiar with "saved" language. We don't usually ask someone, "Are you saved?" and when someone asks us this question, we often stutter and fumble for an answer. So how should we answer: "Are you saved?" Constantly. We are constantly being saved by the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Why? Because salvation is dynamic, ongoing. It's a past, present, and future reality. Let me explain. Salvation is a past reality: We have been saved by the death of...

A national strike by thousands of rain-forest Indians is spawning accusations of a proxy war involving Venezuela and an emboldened peasant movement seeking to undermine Peru's pro-U.S. president. For more than two months, thousands of natives have been protesting land reforms issued by President Alan Garcia. The laws -- required by a U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement -- open vast tracts of rain forest to private energy and agriculture investment. In April, natives angered by the new laws donned war paint and grabbed spears, overran roads and rivers, seized control of jungle oil facilities and blocked rural airports. Mr. Garcia initially...

US ambitions to send astronauts back to the moon as a prelude to missions to Mars have been put in doubt by budgetary constraints 40 years after man's triumphant landing on Earth's nearest neighbor. After the Columbia space shuttle disaster in 2003, former president George W. Bush decided to phase out the shuttle flights by 2003 and set a more ambitious mandate for America in space. Launched in 2004, the so-called Constellation program aims to take Americans back to the moon by 2020 to use as a launch pad for manned voyages to Mars.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A US military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities would be "very destabilizing," top US military commander Admiral Mike Mullen said Sunday, warning that any attack could have serious "unintended consequences." "I've been one who has been concerned about a strike on Iran for some time, because it could be very destabilizing, and it is the unintended consequences of that which aren't predictable," the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff told the Fox News Sunday television program.

At least 38 states overestimated tax revenues And states weren't just barely missing their revenue projections; they whiffed by large margins.

KISS man calls for abuse accusers By Nick Patch, THE CANADIAN PRESS TORONTO - Gene Simmons says he's heard enough celebrity tributes to Michael Jackson, and wants to hear from the kids who accused the late pop singer of molestation. Simmons, the bassist/vocalist for classic rock stalwarts Kiss, says he's less interested in Jackson's talent than he is in accusations that the singer molested young boys. "I want the kids who've accused him, to be blunt, of molestation, to have their say," Simmons told The Canadian Press in a telephone interview from Los Angeles on Thursday. "I want to hear...

WASHINGTON'S traditional means of projecting power abroad was growing "increasingly obsolete" and its billion-dollar military hardware could be as ineffectual against future threats as the heavily fortified Maginot line was in defending France against the Nazis, a senior Pentagon adviser has warned. In a wake-up call to US military chiefs, Andrew Krepinevich, a leading architect of the counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, argued that the Pentagon was ill-equipped to counter rising powers such as China, hostile states such as Iran, the threat from irregular forces such as Hezbollah, and terrorists such as al-Qa'ida. It was also wasting billions on...

The National Weather Service is reporting that 2009 was one of the coldest and wettest June's on record for New York, with an average temperature of only 67.5 degrees, and an almost record of 10.06 inches of rain. The NWS called the month's weather an, "Unusually wet and cool June for Central Park."

Few small-business owners think the federal economic stimulus will help their companies, according to a survey by Intuit Inc., creator of QuickBooks and other software that manages finances. In addition, 98% have not received any money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and 86% doubt the $787 billion government spending and incentive plan will directly benefit their businesses. What do you think? Vote here

"Iran said Sunday it has released a British-Greek journalist detained for two weeks during its postelection crackdown..."

Several Hawaii churches are uniting to register tens of thousands of new voters in hopes of influencing 2010 elections for the Legislature and governor's office. Hawaii Family Forum is leading the effort, which also includes several Protestant Churches, the Catholic Diocese of Honolulu, and the Mormon Church.... Even in the 2nd most unionized US state (NY is #1), churches are 64% larger than unions.