Free Republic

One in three breast cancer patients identified in public screening programs may be treated unnecessarily, a new study says. Karsten Jorgensen and Peter Gotzsche of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen analyzed breast cancer trends at least seven years before and after government-run screening programs for breast cancer started in parts of Australia, Britain, Canada, Norway and Sweden. The research was published Friday in the BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal. Jorgensen and Gotzsche did not cite any funding for their study. Once screening programs began, more cases of breast cancer were inevitably picked up, the study showed....

The federal Defense of Marriage Act which protects the traditional definition of marriage may be facing its biggest challenge yet. Massachusetts filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the federal law. "We're taking this action today because, first, we believe that [DOMA] directly interferes with Massachusetts' long-standing sovereign authority to define and regulate the marital status of its residents," said Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. Massachusetts was the first state in the country in 2003 to legalize marriage for same-sex couples. It is now also the first state to challenge DOMA, the 1996 law that defines marriage as between one man and...

Everyone wants to write their congressman (person) when they are displeased with the way things are going. When that does not work (and it won't) many choose to demonstrate at their local city offices or state capital. Others take the time to actually travel to the seat of the real problem - Washington DC. When that does not work (and it never does) what is left to do. Just do it all over again and again and again........ Let me tell you a tale of Bill Clinton, an ambassador buddy of his (that was one of his anti-Vietnam war buddies)...

American International Group is preparing to pay millions of dollars more in bonuses to several dozen top corporate executives after an earlier round of payments four months ago set off a national furor. The troubled insurance giant has been pressing the federal government to bless the payments in hopes of shielding itself from renewed public outrage. The request puts the administration's new compensation czar on the spot by seeking his opinion about bonuses that were promised long before he took his post. AIG doesn't actually need the permission of Kenneth R. Feinberg, who President Obama appointed last month to oversee...

Featured Term (selected at random):DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM The philosophy founded by Karl Marx (1818-83) and Friedrich Engels (1820-95), and condemned as such by the Catholic Church. It is materialism because it holds not only that matter is real but that matter is prior to mind both in time and in fact. Thus mind is said to appear only as an outgrowth of matter and must be explained accordingly. Space and time are viewed as forms of the existence of matter. It is dialectical in claiming that everything is in constant process of self-transformation. Everything is made up of opposing forces whose...

Voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on eight out of 10 key electoral issues, including, for the second straight month, the top issue of the economy. They've also narrowed the gap on the remaining two issues, the traditionally Democratic strong suits of health care and education. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that voters trust the GOP more on economic issues 46% to 41%, showing little change from the six-point lead the party held last month. This is just the second time in over two years of polling the GOP has held the advantage on economic issues....

They lie rigidly face-down on rooftops, postboxes, luggage racks and even in the engine of a jumbo jet. It's the latest and perhaps the most bizarre internet phenomenon yet to sweep the globe. Several Facebook groups set up in honour of 'the Lying Down Game' display thousands of photographs of people lying face-down in progressively odder locations. It seems no location is out of bounds, with people lying down roofs, in the middle of the road, in front of tanks, across bars in pubs and on table football games. Participants are told there are two aims to the challenge; that...

OTTAWA -- In a clear indication that Canada is starting to be considered a low-tax place to do business, Tim Hortons Inc. announced Monday plans to shift its base of operations from Delaware to Canada for tax purposes. Further, analysts indicate this is also a sign of unease among corporations regarding the U.S. business environment, where taxes are likely heading upward to deal with trillion-dollar deficits and proposed health-care reforms; and the White House is looking to crack down on companies that invest abroad.

Conservatives are working themselves up into a lather over two stories today. The first came from testimony from Ed Rendell's testimony on Capitol Hill. I would like to see a second stimulus devoted solely to infrastructure," he said. "It's what produces jobs, and produces orders for factories, American factories." ... Look, I think the stimulus bill was misnamed," he said. "Part of it was stimulus, part of it was job creation, but a lot of it was relief," such as increased unemployment insurance and food stamps.

To be filed under the category, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Democrats are going to say, "He's not looking at her butt! He's looking at... well, he's looking at something on the floor!!!" And I say, "Not with that look on his face, he isn't. And don't think Sarkozy doesn't know exactly what's going on, either." There are many Democrats who laud the Clinton era, and yearn for a return to that gilded age when the streets were paved with gold. There are flaws with their memories, of course: a comparison between the Bush and Clinton years doesn't...

The federal government's most secure prison has determined that two books written by President Barack Obama contain material "potentially detrimental to national security" and rejected an inmate's request to read them.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Thousands of protesters streamed down avenues of the capital Thursday, chanting "death to the dictator" and defying security forces who fired tear gas and charged with batons, witnesses said. The first opposition foray into the streets in 11 days aimed to revive mass demonstrations that were crushed in Iran's postelection turmoil. Iranian authorities had promised tough action to prevent the marches, which supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi have been planning for days in Internet messages. Heavy police forces deployed at key points in the city ahead of the marches, and Tehran's governor vowed to...

Reuters: U.S. President Barack Obama (C) and France's President Nicolas Sarkozy (R) take their places with junior G8 delegates for a family photo at the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, July 9, 2009.

Reporters from roughly 30 television networks, newspapers, magazines, and web sites celebrated the Fourth of July with Barack Obama at the White House last weekend. Why didn't you know that? Because they were sworn to secrecy. We reported yesterday that Politico's Mike Allen was spotted milling about as a guest at the White House's "backyard bash" by the pool reporter, who was allowed into the event for 40 minutes and kept in a pen before being ushered out. When Allen quoted from the pool report in his Playbook column the next day, he deleted a reference to his own name...

Hello old friend. Realtor.org: No-doc loans are particularly hard to get, locking out people whose incomes are derived from investments or who are able to tax-shelter significant dollars. The California Mortgage Bankers Association spokesman Dustin Hobbs says the industry understands that banning most alternative financing isn’t the long-term answer. "It's a reaction to the current environment," he says. "There's such a lack of appetite for risk right now in general that any product viewed as having any sort of risk at all has a tough hill to climb." Chris George, president of CMG Mortgage, predicts that no-docs and other nontraditional...

This was posted earlier by someone who was obviously a hack and trying to create the image that a "birther" was owned in a debate. I think it's worth listening to because the pro-Obama side never really makes much of a case. He's nothing more than a bully, and it's clear as day.

The news is not that American combat troops withdrew from Iraqi cities. The news is that American combat troops withdrew from Iraqi cities in victory — rather than in defeat. Two years ago at this time, few in the foreign-policy establishment considered that outcome possible. Some did not even see it as desirable. There were those who believed that the conflict in Iraq was “unwinnable,” that America had met its match on the hot and dusty streets of 21st-century Mesopotamia. Others thought Americans needed a Vietnam-like refresher course about the futility of the use of U.S. military force anywhere in...

TREASURE ISLAND — A woman has been arrested after accosting her live-in boyfriend with a pink sex toy. Kimberly Lynn Calvert, 45, of 11875 3rd St. E, Apt. 4, was arrested Wednesday on a charge of simple battery. Police say an intoxicated Calvert first yelled at John Anthony Gonzales, with whom she has been living for five months, then "began poking" him "in the groin area multiple times" with the sex toy. Gonzalez called 911.

Republicans on Thursday lashed out in opposition to legislation that would require more than $6.5 billion of funds from the federal government's bank-bailout package to be used to help troubled homeowners and neighborhoods on Main Street. House Financial Services Committee chief Barney Frank, D-Mass. "We need to restore fiscal discipline," said Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, during a hearing of the panel. "Treasury needs flexibility and this won't give it to the agency." The legislation, introduced by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., would require that some remaining funds from the Troubled Asset Relief...

LOS ANGELES – Scientists have detected a spike in underground rumblings on a section of California's San Andreas Fault that produced a magnitude-7.8 earthquake in 1857. What these mysterious vibrations say about future earthquakes is far from certain. But some think the deep tremors suggest underground stress may be building up faster than expected and may indicate an increased risk of a major temblor. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, monitored seismic activity on the fault's central section between July 2001 and February 2009 and recorded more than 2,000 tremors. The tremors lasted mere minutes to nearly half an...