Free Republic

With food safety awareness growing around the world, the Codex Alimentarius Commission, a joint body of the FAO and the World Health Organization, adopted last week more than 30 new standards and guidelines to protect consumers' health, it said.

FAIRBANKS — Gov. Sarah Palin is planning to talk gun rights with local radio personality Michael Dukes today and will sign several pieces of Second Amendment-related legislation in Fairbanks. Palin unexpectedly resigned a week ago, saying she will transfer power to Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell on July 26 in Fairbanks. Since her announcement, Palin has traveled to remote Alaska communities, offering TV interviews to national networks near Bristol Bay, signing a bill in McGrath and meeting with constituents in Kotzebue. On Wednesday, Palin’s communication director Dave Murrow said he expects the governor to continue her travels. “She’s stacking up opportunities...

Whether you like her or hate her you have to admit that the treatment Sarah Palin received in the press has been unfair and unprofessional. So its no surprise that one of the reasons that Sarah Palin gave for her resignation last week was the horrible attacks she and her children have received from in the press. These attacks were not based on policy, from the very beginning they were personal. Here teenage daughter's pregnancy became press fodder, she was accused of not being the mother of her own child and Fox News token liberal Alan Colmes claimed that Sarah...

Why did Alaska’s ambitious governor ditch a lame-duck $125,000 job? Between a $4 million book deal, speeches, and a possible TV gig, The Daily Beast’s Duff McDonald calculates up to 20 million reasons a year. ...

It was more handshake diplomacy by President Obama as he became the first US president to exchange a face-to-face greeting with Libyan leader Moammar Qadhafi. As Chairman of the African Union, Qadhafi was invited to attend the G8 Summit Leaders dinner tonight in L’Aquila, Italy. As the chiefs of state and heads of government gathered for a class photo, Qadhafi approached President Obama and they shook hands. It was a polite encounter, conducted according to protocol. Qadhafi smiled, Mr. Obama not so much. Back in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan would sooner have cut off his arm than shake hands...

A law student is facing ruin after using a false identity to get a £3,200 breast enlargement because she thought it would boost her career. Nina Burmis, 19, pretended for two months to be called Jayne Ladylock while conning a cosmetic surgery group into paying for the hospital operation. The second-year undergraduate, who also tried to buy a £77,500 house using false details, was told by a judge today she was not fit to study law. Surgeons at a Manchester hospital gave her 32C silicone implants on December 12. The Hull University student, also known as Shaneika, had been sent...

NEW YORK — A fundraiser at an upstate university has sued two senior athletic department officials, accusing them of using her as a "plaything" and trying to make her ply big donors with her sexuality. The plaintiff, Elizabeth Williams, is represented by the lawyer who won a highly publicized sexual harassment case against former New York Knicks coach Isiah Thomas two years ago. Williams' lawsuit, filed late Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan, alleges that after she took the fundraising position late last year in the Binghamton University athletic department, she "discovered that her new bosses viewed women as playthings...

In this report we get a nice one-two punch. Not only are we seeing Democrats once again refusing even a tiny compromise with Republicans on Obama's takeover of nearly 20% of our economy with his healthcare plans, but we also get to see another example of why Huffington Post is not journalism. I like a nice one-two punch for a Wednesday. For one thing, the HuffPo article hilariously calls Democrat pitbull Rahm Emanuel a “conservative Democrat.” But let's start with the more important political point and deal with the HuffPo chicanery second. In a HuffPo "report" by Sam Stein, we...

As a disemboweled GOP struggles to marshal an effective opposition to President Barack Obama, it can at least take heart in a singular fact: Obama’s historic election as the first African American president, and even the possibility of such a candidacy, are direct legacies of the Republican Party. The GOP originated in the mid-19th century as a barely choate coalition of former Whigs, evangelical Christians, and New England intellectuals who had little in common save a loathing of slavery and a devotion to its demise — either by restricting its growth into the territories (the course favored by moderate Republicans)...

NEW YORK — The New York Times inadvertently published digitally manipulated photographs in the latest issue of its Sunday magazine, the newspaper said Thursday. In an editors note, the Times acknowledged that Edgar Martins, a 32-year-old freelance photographer based in Bedford, England, digitally altered the photos. The shots have been removed from the newspaper's Web site. Readers pointed out alterations to the photo essay, titled "Ruins of the Second Gilded Age," on the blogs MetaFilter and PDN Pulse. The photos showed run-down housing construction projects across the U.S. that had been hit by the recession. In an introduction to the...

WASHINGTON – The huge amount of money tied up in complex derivative transactions helped cripple the economy, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told lawmakers Friday as he laid out a case for greater government control over a generally unregulated sector of the financial markets. "Establishing a comprehensive framework of oversight is crucial," Geithner said .. Despite apprehension among Republicans, the effort to add government restrictions to these more freewheeling financial instruments has gained support within the Democratic-controlled Congress. "Clearly, we're going to be significantly expanding regulation of derivatives," said Rep. Barney Frank, ..

'These steps are covered with blood' Her 1973 supreme court case, Roe v Wade, gave every US woman the right to have an abortion. Yet now, Norma McCorvey is prepared to go to prison to help reverse that law. The figurehead of America's anti-abortion movement tells Ed Pilkington what caused this extraordinary change of heart 7 July 2009 The woman standing on the steps of the supreme court in Washington DC is nervous. A harsh sun is beating down on the white marble, threatening to bleach her out of the picture. She looks very small beneath the classical columns of...

For 1,500 years, the agrarian Zapotec state spanned 800 square miles (2,000 square kilometers) and was home to at least 100,000 people. The Zapotec were pioneers in the use of agriculture and writing systems. They were gifted weavers and ceramic artisans. They built Monte Albán, one of the earliest cities in the Americas, and established a remarkably organized bureaucratic structure. But their state collapsed, and no one is exactly sure why. One place where the story of Zapotec civilization is being uncovered is 25 miles (40 kilometers) outside the city of Oaxaca, at the site of an ancient town...

Here is video of Levi Johnston, former fiance of Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol, talking with reporters. He said he believes Gov. Palin is resigning as Alaska Governor because of the money she can make by writing a book once she is out of office. Johnston also said he could not vote for Palin if she runs for President after seeing "what she's done to Alaska," referring to her resignation before finishing her term. I post this pathetic interview, not because Johnston has one ounce of credibility or judgment when it comes to politics, but because it shows the kind...

Chinese archaeologists said here on Wednesday that they have sketched out the layout of the first capital of Kublai Khan's empire, known as Xanadu in Marco Polo's Travel Notes, through a large-scale excavation... The capital Shangdu was built in 1256 under the command of Kublai Khan, the first emperor of Yuan Dynasty, who was enthroned there four years later. It became a summer resort after the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) moved its capital to present-day Beijing in 1276, and was destroyed during a peasant war at the end of the dynasty... the excavation program, the largest of its kind on the...

Defending Sarah Palin by Eric Alterman How can anyone spin Palin’s sudden decision to ditch Alaska? The Daily Beast’s Eric Alterman finds the barracuda’s biggest GOP fans calling it “brilliant,” “shrewd,” and a big first step toward the White House. Say what you will about the still-governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. She sure knows how to separate the metaphorical men from the boys. How many figures of her national stature—for better or worse—could make so dramatic an announcement as she did on Friday afternoon and leave the rest of the country with no idea whatsoever what the hell it meant?...

Today marks the quincentenary of John Calvin’s birth. Over at the First Things site, I take the occasion to pay special attention to Calvin’s concern for articulating the antiquity, and therefore the catholicity, of the Reformation. Among the factors that converts from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism very often cite as major influences on their move is the novelty of the former compared with the antiquity of the latter. This is, undoubtedly, an important point that ought to be addressed by concerned Protestants. But I argue, in continuity with the Reformers, I think, that this concern is best answered in the...

Panetta kills secret spy program By: Alex Isenstadt July 10, 2009 11:56 AM EST The ongoing tussle between Congress and the CIA deepened Friday as a congresswoman said that CIA Director Leon Panetta had killed an eight-year-long covert spy program that had operated without the knowledge of Congress. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) told The Associated Press Friday that the program in question was "very, very serious," adding that it "certainly deserved a serious debate at the time and through the years." Schakowksy, who serves as chairwoman of the Intelligence Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee, also called for a full investigation into...

For those that want universal healthcare, the panacea of "coverage" is expected to "give" all those currently without healthcare coverage the access they need to the medical care they now lack. This sounds wonderful all things being equal. It sounds caring and big hearted of them to want everyone to get medical care. But what is the practical outcome of this desire with a system in government hands? Obama has claimed that he wants to create a sort of standard minimum of coverage provided by government for those entirely without. Again, it sounds like a great idea but how long...

The leader of Taliban militants in Pakistan's Swat district has been critically wounded and is close to death, the BBC has learned. The information about Maulana Fazlullah confirms statements from senior government and security officials. A former village cleric, he founded the branch of the Taliban movement which eventually took over the Swat valley. After a recent offensive, Pakistan's army says it has almost defeated rebels in that sector of the north-west. It has been battling Taliban militants there for about two months and the government says it has regained control of the region. 'No medicine' The information about Maulana...