Free Republic

Early this morning, while most Americans were asleep in their beds, Barack Obama was protecting the world, one degree at a time. In a decisive maneuver to control the earth’s climate change, the U.S. president and his comrades at the G-8 summit promised to keep the world’s temperature from rising over 3.6°F (2.0°C). Details of the president’s plan are still sketchy, though the cap-and-trade bill passed by the House and due for debate in the Senate is likely a first step. Obama may then contact the Defense Department, which has been largely idle now that the president has begun to...

Newspapers, blogs, talk-shows on radio and television are full of discussion over Pope Benedict XVI's supposed call for a "new world order" or a "one-world government."  These ideas are, however, neither based in reality nor a clear reading of the Pope's latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, the release of which yesterday spawned the heated discussion.The Pope actually speaks directly against a one-world government, and, as would be expected from those who have read his previous writings, calls for massive reform of the United Nations.  Confusion seems to have come from paragraph 67 of the encyclical, which has some choice pull-quotes...

WHEN the news broke yesterday that Edward Kenna, Australia's last surviving Victoria Cross winner from World War II had died, old Diggers in suburbs and small country towns around the nation wept for a mate whom they knew only as "Ned". He was a humble and self-effacing bloke who always insisted that too much fuss was made of his heroic, some would argue crazy, act of courage in the jungles of New Guinea in the closing months of the war. As Kevin Rudd led the tributes to Mr Kenna, who died on Wednesday aged 90, other more personal memories were...

Should Michael Jackson be the butter sculpture at the Iowa State Fair? Yes 1,054 (25.8%) No 3,038 (74.2%)

During the first five months of this year, with the Senate under the control of its first African-American majority leader, Smith, top Democrats bemoaned the lack of minority Senate staffers. But instead of trying to recruit new hires, they fired nearly 200 almost exclusively white workers and replaced them with a large number of minority employees, many of whom were seen by their fellow workers to be unskilled at their new jobs. The move produced severe racial tensions, made worse by the fact that, as a high-level Democratic staffer confided, "We've been told to only hire minorities.''

Watching excerpts of Michael Jackson's funeral on the news last Tuesday and being lionized as an iconic civil rights leader by the likes of Rev. Al Sharpton, I couldn't help but think of the sheer irony and folly behind such outlandish adulation being bestowed on the late drug abuser and child molester. According to some these folks MJ helped even make it possible for BHO to get elected as POTUS. This is really weird considering the fact that Michael Jackson did everything possible to become a white person including destroying his body with ceaseless skin bleachings, facelifts, and nose jobs...

On Wednesday, the Treasury Department announced [1] that nine asset managers (see the list below) had been picked [2] to partner with the government to buy older, hard-to-value mortgage-backed securities. Up to $30 billion in taxpayer money will go toward the effort. The fund managers will raise up to $10 billion, which will be matched by up to $10 billion in TARP money, with $20 billion more available from the TARP as cheap financing to boost the size of the buys.Originally conceived [3] as the whole purpose of the TARP, then a major portion ($100 billion) of the TARP, the...

A senior New Brunswick Roman Catholic priest is demanding the Prime Minister's Office explain what happened to the sacramental communion wafer Stephen Harper was given at Roméo LeBlanc's funeral mass.During communion at the solemn and dignified service held last Friday in Memramcook for the former governor general, the prime minister slipped the thin wafer that Catholics call "the host" into his jacket pocket.In Catholic understanding, the host - once consecrated by a priest for the Eucharist - becomes the body and blood of Jesus Christ. It is crucial that the small wafer be consumed when it is received.Monsignor Brian Henneberry,...

Greenpeace Livestreams the Action Greenpeace activists were arrested Wednesday for scaling Mount Rushmore and hanging a banner next to the carved face of Abraham Lincoln urging President Barack Obama to get tough on climate change. A video posted on the environmental group's website showed the massive banner hanging on the South Dakota mountain face. Its message -- "America honors leaders not politicians: Stop Global Warming" and an unfinished portrait of Obama -- was barely visible as it was whipped by wind. "Doing what it takes to solve global warming demands real political courage," Greenpeace USA deputy campaigns director Carroll Muffett...

In a potentially alarming trend for the White House, independent voters are deserting President Barack Obama nationally and especially in key swing states, recent polls suggest. Obama’s job approval rating hit a — still healthy — low of 56 percent in the Gallup Poll on Wednesday. And pollsters are debating whether Obama’s expansive and expensive policy proposals or the ground-level realities of a still-faltering economy are driving the falling numbers. But a source of the shift appears to be independent voters, who seem to be responding to Republican complaints of excessive spending and government control. “This is a huge sea...

I noticed a few weeks ago that I was at 93 threads and 9,600 something posts, so I thought I'd have a little party to celebrate when I got to my 100th thread and 10,000th post, and that I might even control my replies and thread-starting to make the two coincide. Well, this is it. Virtual cigars for everyone! Alcohol, tobacco, and firearms at the virtual open bar! So I guess my work here is done. Consider this my opus. Just kidding, you're not getting rid of me that easily!

BAGHDAD – More than 40 people died in bombings in Iraq on Thursday in the worst violence since U.S. combat troops withdrew from urban areas at the end of last month. Even though attacks are down sharply from past years of war, the carnage was a reminder that insurgents remain intent on destabilizing Iraq as the United States shifts its focus to the war in Afghanistan. Militants have been driven from many strongholds, but they routinely inflict casualties in Baghdad and northern Iraq, a cauldron of ethnic and sectarian tension.

Fermi's Gamma-ray Pulsars NASA, DOE, Fermi LAT Collaboration Explanation: Born in supernovae, pulsars are spinning neutron stars, collapsed stellar cores left from the death explosions of massive stars. Traditionally identified and studied by observing their regular radio pulsations, two dozen pulsars have now been detected at extreme gamma-ray energies by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The detections include 16 pulsars identified by their pulsed gamma-ray emission alone. This gamma-ray all-sky map, aligned with the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, shows the pulsar positions, with the 16 new Fermi pulsars circled in yellow (8 previously known radio pulsars are in...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi replies to a question about claiming the CIA misleads Congress.

This is my “told you so” column. Truth is — I was saving it for later in the summer when the Office of Management and Budget revises its deficit figures and reveals just how badly Obamanomics is faring. But in the last few days, the president and vice-president have been confessing the administration’s failings on the economy to the world’s media, so I’ve had to hurry things along. So here it is: I told you so. I told you the president should have focused 100% of his energies on the economy. I told you the president’s housing plan wouldn’t work...

I just realized I am a liberal. This revelation came to me after reviewing the issues a certain liberal candidate for office outlined. On every issue she listed I found I was in concurrence. I think you too will come to the same conclusion. Here is the list of the issues (in bold and italicized): Pro-choice? You bet! I completely concur. I think people should have the choice to send their kids to parochial or private schools just like many ...

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 (see trends). Thirty-nine percent (39%) now give the President good or excellent marks for handling the economy while 43% say he is doing a poor job. Those are by far his lowest ratings yet on the economy...

BERLIN (Reuters) – A badger in Germany got so drunk on over-ripe cherries it staggered into the middle of a road and refused to budge, police said on Wednesday. .... Police discovered the nocturnal beast had eaten cherries from a nearby tree which had turned to alcohol and given the badger diarrhoea. Having failed to scare the animal away, officers eventually chased it from the road with a broom.

I must give you my highest commendations for WORLD NET DAILY, Lighthouse Trails (and Jan Markell's, and Ken Silva's) rightful scathing sharp rebuke of Rick Warren! Shout it from the rooftops!!! Here is my response to this abomination committed by Rick Warren: I found it extremely ironic that Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Churches enforce removal of Bible studies, removal of good Bible teachers from churches, Christian purpose-driven pastors (like a top Rick Warren lieutenant) calling the police to remove a Christian from public property in front of his church because he picketed against the church conducting purpose driven teachings and...

MARK STEYN HOSTING FOR RUSH