Free Republic

More than 60 campers from Northeast Philadelphia were turned away from a private swim club and left to wonder if their race was the reason.Kids at Creative Steps Day Camp were thrilled to go swimming once a week at the Valley Swim Club. But after only one trip to the private club, they were... "I heard this lady, she was like, 'Uh, what are all these black kids doing here?' She's like, 'I'm scared they might do something to my child,'" said camper Dymire Baylor. The Creative Steps Day Camp paid more than $1900 to The Valley Swim Club. The...

The flagship system designed to protect the U.S. government's computer networks from cyberspies is being stymied by technical limitations and privacy concerns, according to current and former national-security officials. The latest complete version of the system, known as Einstein, won't be fully installed for 18 months, according to current and former officials, seven years after it was first rolled out. This system doesn't protect networks from attack. It only raises the alarm after one has happened. A more capable version has sparked privacy alarms, which could delay its rollout. Since the National Security Agency acknowledged eavesdropping on phone and Internet...

In a stunning report (pdf) released yesterday by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the current financial crisis was traced back to government intervention in the U.S. housing market.  Yes, you read that right.   The report issued by the Republican minority didn’t disclose the names of the culprit individuals, but it sure pointed a lot of fingers at organizations, politicians, lobbyists and Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac. According to the report, government intervention “created ‘affordable’ but dangerous lending policies which encouraged lower down payments, looser underwriting standards and higher leverage.  Finally, government intervention created a nexus of vested interests...

Wildlife officials respond to several confrontations Tuesday night. Authorities responded to several reports of bears in homes or yards west of Boulder on Tuesday night, including one in which a bear walked into a house in Sunshine Canyon. Rice said it was the second time in recent weeks that a bear was in his house. He said in the previous break-in, the bear — he thinks it was the same one — got in through a doggie door. After officials left Rice’s house Tuesday night, a bear also walked under the porch at the home next door, belonging to Schindler....

As a people we need, at all times, the encouragement of home ownership. HERBERT HOOVER, 1932The idea that home ownership confers special benefits on American society is deeply embedded in our culture—so much so that our national tax policy confers a special benefit of its own on it. Home ownership is granted an advantage over all other forms of ownership in the form of an enormous deduction on the interest payments most individuals incur in financing their homes. Nothing else in the tax code comes anywhere near that deduction in scope or size. We have decided, as a nation, that home...

Here is a CNN video report with disturbing new details about the death of Michael Jackson. "Lily white from head to toe; emaciated; paper thin skin; numerous track marks. . ." Just some of the details about Jackson's body. Speculation is now centering on the possible use of Diprivan - an anesthesia medication used in hospitals. The story just keeps getting stranger. . . . . (Watch Video)

July 7, 2009  As Hamas Tightens Its Grip By Khaled Abu Toameh As the row between the Obama Administration and the Israeli government over the settlements continues, Hamas is gradually turning the Gaza Strip into a Taliban-style Islamic entity that poses a threat not only to Israel, but also to the Americans, Europeans and moderate Arabs and Muslims. Both Hamas and its rivals in the Palestinian Authority appear to be satisfied with the fact that the Obama Administration has turned the issue of the settlements into the major problem, shifting attention from the incompetence and corruption in the West Bank...

L’Osservatore Romano of 8 July has a few articles pertaining to the new encyclical. Here is one of them. Some folks helped to ferret out the corresponding English. These bullet points were offered to help a reading of the encyclical. Call them… call them…. "encycli-bites".

Energy Bill Won't Solve Global Warming by Brian Thomas, M.S.* United States lawmakers are considering a bill whose purpose is “to make energy more expensive, so people use less of it and to create a penalty for carbon-based fuels.”[1] Its intent is to reduce the emission of the greenhouse gases that are supposedly fueling global warming. If passed, the bill would set up a complicated system called “cap and trade” whereby fossil fuel distribution would be regulated by the government. Critics believe the bill will give the U.S. government socialist-like authority over the American people, which could deal a severe...

Candidate --First pick-- --Strongly approve-- --Approve-- --Disapprove-- --Strongly disapprove-- --Last pick-- Mitt Romney 25% 39% 73% 19% 5% 9% Sarah Palin 24% 45% 76% 21% 9% 21% Mike Huckabee 22% 41% 78% 17% 5% 10% Newt Gingrich 14% 35% 65% 29% 11% 15% Haley Barbour 1% 7% 34% 37% 13% 21% Tim Pawlenty 1% 8% 38% 33% 9% 15% Dick Cheney Not running 30% 59% 34% 14% n/a FReeper Dangus: Wow, folks. Romney, Palin and Huckabee all neck-and-neck, with Romney having the edge in first choice picks, Palin having the edge in strong approval, and Huckabee having the edge...

Three people are dead after an apparent double murder-suicide in Preston County. Investigators say 50-year-old Charles Wise Junior, 51-year-old Kathy Wise, and 71-year-old Imogene Shaffer were found dead early Tuesday at a house on Schumaker Road. Gunshot wounds were found on all of the bodies, but police are waiting on autopsy results. Wise, Junior was inside the house, while the women were found outside. He was married to Wise, while Shaffer was her mother. Police think Wise, Junior killed the women before killing himself. A note was found somewhere other than the house, which leading police to investigate it as...

The powerful attack that overwhelmed computers at U.S. and South Korean government agencies for days was even broader than initially realized, also targeting the White House, the Pentagon and the New York Stock Exchange. Other targets of the attack included the National Security Agency, Homeland Security Department, State Department, the Nasdaq stock market and The Washington Post, according to an early analysis of the malicious software used in the attacks. Many of the organizations appeared to successfully blunt the sustained computer assaults. The Associated Press obtained the target list from security experts analyzing the attacks. It was not immediately clear...

House Debates Honor For Jackson Politico: Not Everyone Is Behind Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee's Resolution Praising Michael Jackson (The Politico) This story was written by Glenn Thrush At about 3 p.m. Tuesday, civil rights hero John Lewis (D-Ga.) rose in a nearly-empty House chamber to express his support for a resolution recognizing the slaves who toiled and died while building the Capitol. At almost the same moment, Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) took the stage at the sold-out Staples Center in Los Angeles, where she vowed to bestow a similar honor on the King of Pop. Jackson-Lee's 1,500 word resolution honoring Michael...

A few days ago, I read this article "Spies 'infiltrate US power grid' ", and I thought, "Wow, that's hardly a surprise," but I blew it off. I disregarded it-not because Michael Jackson's funeral was on TV, or because I was preparing/partying/recovering from 3 days of straight BBQ party for the Fourth of July. No, I blew it off because we all suspected this kind of thing was always happening, always possible, and it's like the threat of nuclear war: awful, not something one wants to think about, and we kind of already know the consequences. Today, multiple papers are...

And there is going to be a certain amount of lag time between getting shovels on the ground, out on rebuilding roads and bridges, and actually seeing job numbers improve. But even as we're thinking short term on how to relieve the very real burdens that American families are feeling, the question I have to wrestle with, and we have to wrestle with now is, how are we going to get the economy on a growth track that is sustainable over the long term? And that's where this debate around health care, energy, education, and the shape of our government...

Palin does a parade in small town New York in June and 20,000 show up!Shouldn't the news media which is going ga-ga over Sarah Palin pay some attention to this? Biden fails to draw crowd in Erie By Selena Zito Pittsburg Tribune Posted July 1, 2009 11 :29 AM Wattsburg, Pa. — Vice President Joe Biden visited a small town on the outskirts of Erie today to talk to rural folks about federal stimulus money that can be used to expand broadband access to the Internet for rural areas that typically have poor connections. Apparently stimulus money and broadband are...

Many, O LORD my God, are Your wonderful works which You have done; And Your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted to You in order; If I would declare and speak of them, They are more than can be numbered. (Psalm 40:5)

I know many of you scratch your heads as to how Obama could have been elected. I don't. I'm out on the streets everyday and know full well just how many profound morons there are in this country. And what makes it worse, they have outlets to voice their thoughts. Witness... Video

Apparently Sarah Palin's decision to quit her post as Governor of Alaska wasn't as misguided as it sounded at first, because it has certainly already begun to work it's magic on winning over the Republican party. According to a new USA Today/Gallup Poll, her popularity has surged amongst Republicans since she made the announcement. 71 percent of Republicans said they would vote for Palin if she ran for president in 2012, and three-fourths believe that Palin has been treated unfairly by the media. Two-thirds of Republicans want Palin to be "a major national political figure" in the future, while three-fourths...

The financial system collapsed. Housing prices cratered. Unemployment is at a record high for the last quarter-century. The Democratic president has a solidly positive job rating. And yet we Americans have not suddenly become collectivists. The economic distress of the 1930s led Americans to favor less reliance on markets and more on government. The economic distress of the 1970s led Americans to favor less reliance on government and more on markets. It doesn't seem unreasonable to expect, as many political liberals have been predicting, that the economic distress of the late 2000s will produce a shift in the 1930s direction....