Free Republic

Michael Jackson's brain will be returned to his family for burial after tests to ascertain the cause of death have been completed, US officials in Los Angeles said.

— General Motors could literally turn green as it readies itself for major management and cultural changes that will coincide with its escape from bankruptcy protection. People briefed on its plans say the company is looking into changing the background color of its corporate logo from blue to green in an effort to show consumers that it is leaner and greener...

The New York Times has removed photos from its website that appear to have been digitally altered. From Fishbowl NY Editor & Publisher noticed that the New York Times had taken down a slideshow of photos by Portuguese photographer Edgar Martins that had appeared in this Sunday's magazine depicting abandoned house construction projects in the wake of the financial crisis. Now, instead of the gallery online, there is a short statement from the paper: "The pictures in this feature were removed after questions were raised about whether they had been digitally altered." It's unclear who made the original allegations of...

"The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 30% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-eight percent (38%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –8. The President’s Approval Index rating has fallen six points since release of a disappointing jobs report last week."

Al Sharpton is a professional bigot who has fanned the flames of hatred and have incited killings. At Freddies, a store in Harlem, he manufactured a riot where a crowd torched the store killing the workers inside, and during the Crown Heights Pogrom where he lit flames under the African American community that led to the death of Yankel Rosenbaum. The "Wrong-Reverend" has made a career of using bigotry to promote Al Sharpton. While a real minister would build bridges across ethnic divides, Sharpton burns them. To be honest he is a master at it. By fanning the flames of...

The GSA announced that the web site that tracks where stimulus dollars are being spent is about to get a redesign at a cost of $18 million dollars. From ABC News ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: For those concerned about stimulus spending, the General Services Administration sends word tonight that $18 million in additional funds are being spent to redesign the Recovery.gov Web site. The new Web site promises to give taxpayers more information about where their money is going than the current version of the site. “Recovery.gov 2.0 will use innovative and interactive technologies to help taxpayers see where...

With Al Franken replacing Norm Coleman, Senate Democrats have another vote for the U.N.'s Law of the Sea Treaty, and there are strong indications that they intend to bring this controversial document up for a vote within days or weeks. Those who favor the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) believe that U.S. security lies in passing a treaty and hiring more lawyers to defend America before an international tribunal, rather than building more ships for the Navy and Coast Guard. The anticipated vote on the treaty follows a strong recent push for ratification from the Council...

The long-running fight over a historic Delaware Lackawanna & Western Railroad locomotive that a railroad group wants to return to Scranton is headed back to a federal appeals court in St. Louis. The Lackawanna Chapter of the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society Inc. has appealed a federal judge's decision that DL&W 952 may remain at St. Louis County's Museum of Transportation even though the museum does not own the 104-year-old steam engine. In his June 5 ruling in favor of the museum, U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. rejected the Lackawanna Chapter's attempt to retake possession of the 952,...

Some in the media are calling it just a statement about "economic justice." But Pope Benedict XVI's "Charity in Truth" statement, also known as an encyclical, is a radical document that puts the Roman Catholic Church firmly on the side of an emerging world government. In explicit and direct language, the Pope calls for a "true world political authority" to manage the affairs of the world. At the same time, however, the Pope also warns that such an international order could "produce a dangerous universal power of a tyrannical nature" and must be guarded against somehow. The New York Times...

Jamie Oliver reforms see pupils reject school food Nicola Woolcock The number of children having school meals has stalled after the increase in nutritional standards pioneered by Jamie Oliver, official figures show today. Only a third of secondary age pupils eating a cooked lunch on the premises while the overall percentage of pupils eating school meals fell at both primary and secondary level compared with 2008. Participation has decreased ever since the standard of food rose following Oliver’s ’School Dinners’ campaign which resulted in the banning of Turkey Twizzlers and daily helpings of chips. The School Food Trust, a Government...

Attention Hunters! If you plan to spend your recreational hunting dollars in North Carolina realize you do so at peril of your life! Wildlife Enforcement Officers have gone as feral as their brothers in other parts of the “Thin JBT Line” . Without fear of prosecution they now have license to shoot 76 year old landowners hunting their own property.

SEOUL, July 9 (Yonhap) -- South Korea on Thursday came under a third round of cyber attacks, with the nation's key government and private Web sites reporting temporary paralyses or severe access disruptions, government and industry officials said. Half a dozen Web sites operated by key government bodies, including the National Assembly, defense ministry, foreign ministry and the National Intelligence Service reported access delays and failures starting around 6 p.m., said the officials. Kookmin Bank, the mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo, leading computer vaccine firm Ahn Lab Inc. and the United States Forces Korea also said their Web sites underwent temporary access...

North Dakota’s only American Civil Liberties Union office in Fargo closed in February, a closure blamed generally on the poor national economy, but also to losses major contributors suffered in the Bernard Madoff scandal.... “The ACLU got hit pretty hard in this economic downturn as far as fewer donors,” Ring said. “There were a couple of really big donors that were really affected by the Madoff scandal.”

The markets were relatively mild up until the last couple hours. The most market shaking event came in the bond market. The three year auction went off spectacularly well. It caused all bonds to improve dramatically. The Ten Year U.S. Treasury, for instance, wound up losing fifteen basis points to 3.29%. Now, mortgage rates are also again below 5.5% on the 30 year mortgage. Oil was down nearly two dollars a barrel as well falling near $60 per barrel. Equities were down most of the day before pulling out of it with both the Dow and the NASDAQ up slightly...

Carly Fiorina, whose rocky tenure as chief executive of Hewlett Packard ended with her firing, is making serious preparations to run next year for the Republican nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Fiorina's candidacy would be her first foray into elective politics and would turn California's Senate contest into one of the most closely watched in 2010.

Attorney Mat Staver is convinced the Obama administration is behind a federal lawsuit filed yesterday in Boston challenging the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The first state to legalize homosexual "marriage" has filed suit against the federal government to overturn DOMA -- the Defense of Marriage Act -- which defines marriage as between a man and a woman. On Wednesday, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley filed the lawsuit in federal court in Boston. The suit claims DOMA interferes with the right of Massachusetts to define marriage as it sees fit. In his race for the White House,...

The orbit of the innermost planet, Mercury, departs from what it should be under Newton's laws. A century ago, when Einstein explained this anomaly, it confirmed his theory of gravity - the general theory of relativity. Now an Israeli physicist predicts that a similar but far more subtle anomaly in the orbits of the planets, if detected, might prove his own theory, known as modified Newtonian dynamics, or MOND. This provides an alternative theory to dark matter to explain why stars orbiting at the edge of spiral galaxies are not flung out into space. These stars are travelling at speeds...

The leader of a Messianic Jewish ministry has written an open letter to mega-church pastor Rick Warren in response to his address to a Muslim group with terrorist connections during its annual convention over the Fourth of July weekend. As reported by OneNewsNow, Warren, who pastors Saddleback Church in California, agreed to appear at the recent convention of the Islamic Society of North America and be part of its main session discussing the convention's theme -- "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." He told the gathering of 8,000 that "Muslims and Christians can work together for the common good...

July 9, 1864 Battle of Monocacy, Maryland On this day, Confederate General Jubal Early brushes a Union force out of his way as he heads for Washington. Early's expedition towards the Union capital was designed to take pressure off Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia around Petersburg. Beginning in early May, Ulysses S. Grant's Union army had continually attacked Lee and drove the Confederates into trenches around the Richmond-Petersburg area. In 1862, the Confederates faced a similar situation around Richmond, and they responded by sending General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson to the Shenandoah Valley to occupy Federal...

“You can’t fool all of the people all of the time” was never truer. With today’s Rasmussen index showing Obama at -5 he’s been below zero since last Thursday. EVEN CNN is saying Obama’s support has slipped 10 points since its last survey. This clown’s mask is melting away. Even his half witted voters are beginning to “get it” as they sit home unemployed because they believed in “change.” Even the lap dog media is waking up. “The Atlantic,” (TA) no friend of conservatism, has posted a sobering argument that unemployment will hit a Great Depression like 14%. TA argues...