Free Republic

I Need a Good Cry By Norma Zager I haven’t cried in a long time. To some that would be seen as a positive. That is unless you know that when I cry, it is with happiness and pride at the state of my country or anything that is good and positive. Thanks go to my Aunt Dora for this unusual personality quirk. When my grandson was born I began to cry when the nurse informed my son and me of the blessed event. To dispel her questioning glance, my son immediately explained, “it’s okay, this is my Mom being...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday urged the government to impose stricter controls on emergency helicopter operators, including requiring the use of autopilots, night-vision systems and flight data recorders in an industry that suffered a record number of fatalities last year. The NTSB recommendations for training and safety equipment to the Federal Aviation Administration are in addition to others made in 2006, such as requiring installation of terrain awareness monitoring to help pilots navigate when weather conditions are poor. The safety board, which cannot require such changes, also wants the Health and Human Services Department to...

Summer came late that year, slowly uncurling and with seemingly great effort, she rose from the frost-covered grass, wiped her eyes clear with the last bit of passing fog and looked down upon the small boy and his cock-eared dog scurrying about on the remains of what appeared to be a homemade battlefield of sorts. There, on the ground ,were bits and pieces of white plastic, tattered paper shards, a few greyish-white, silver dollar sized discs of single-ply cardboard and literally dozens of displaced tiny craters of splotchy dirt. The dog, nose to the ground, was sniffing determinedly about while...

Deutsche Bank and other financial institutions manage complex funds that buy up Americans' life insurance policies and pay their premiums in return for their payouts. But angry German investors are finding that Americans aren't dying as quickly as expected -- and that only the bankers are making a buck.

American politics are rich with characters and stereotypes—Joe the Plumber, Harry and Louise, Nascar dads and hockey moms, to name a few. But one persistent type hasn't gotten much attention: the Republican football coach.

China threatens to repudiate derivatives contracts and the market floats on air - until today, when suddenly the fake "buying" (that is, computer passing of shares back and forth) in bankrupt firms (AIG, Fannie and Freddie specifically) disappears in a puff of smoke and oops - down she goes!

Conservatives are usually the first to complain about the media's ideological bias -- and their narrative on the topic is very strong. Witness, for example, the way the media embraced Barack Obama's presidential campaign; his self-created autobiographical description as a high-minded reformer. Another example: as the health care debate progresses, reporters and news anchors from every major network fall all over themselves to explain away "misconceptions" about President Obama's health insurance reform plan. I often wonder how Bush's Social Security reform plans of 2005 would have fared if the media had run nightly segments pouncing on the disinformation spread about...

Who is Roy Masters? In 1960 Roy Masters started America’s first conservative talk radio show on KTYM in Los Angeles, California. Roy Masters and his “Advice Line” radio program continue today as an institution on radio. “Advice Line” is currently broadcast nationwide on a 130 radio stations and available via the internet. For more about Roy see: http://www.fhu.com/aboutroy.htmlhttp://roymasters.blogspot.comhttp://fhumeditation.blogspot.comTheRoyMastersChannel

ORANGEBURG, S.C. -- South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, stung by political attacks over his extramarital affair with an Argentine woman, said in his first extended interview since June that he no longer wants to "crawl into a cave" and will fight to keep his job in the face of mounting public opposition. "I have a newfound level of humility, knowing how hard I work and how hard I push is not the ultimate driver of change," he said in the interview Monday. "Power resides with people." Mr. Sanford, whose once-high approval numbers have deteriorated, also acknowledged that his opponents "smell...

THE CONSCIENCE OF A LIBERTARIAN by Wayne Allyn Root Review by Dr. John Hospers, © September 2009 My book, LIBERTARIANISM was first published in 1971. Its subtitle, ‘A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow’ has at long last come true today. I hope it’s not too late. The pragmatic reality is in Wayne Allyn Root’s brilliant new volume: THE CONSCIENCE OF A LIBERTARIAN - a title I might add, that was obviously carefully considered and borrowed in the “classic liberal” sense –that is, it was returned with dividends of thought and deserved tribute to The Conscience of a Conservative author, politician –...

As students step foot on campus for another school year, an intelligent design proponent has offered a few tips for the millions who will face the teaching of evolution in their science classrooms. Tip number one, "never opt out of learning evolution," says Casey Luskin, co-founder of the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center, according to the Discovery Institute. "In fact, learn about evolution every chance you get." Having attended public schools from kindergarten through his master’s degree at the University of California, San Diego, Luskin was taught a "biased and one-sided origins" curriculum – basically, the neo-Darwinian theory....

The New International Version of the Bible is by far the most preferred translation of the Scripture, according to a new survey of U.S. evangelical leaders. More than 65 percent of the participating leaders named the NIV as their preferred Bible in a survey conducted by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) in light of the NIV’s 30th anniversary this year. “New Bible translations face large competition to gain a foothold in churches and homes but once established they have long staying power,” commented Leith Anderson, president of the NAE, which claims to represent 30 million evangelicals. “And, the NIV...

Two parts of the Obama administration are giving conflicting reports on the dangers posed by terrorist detainees to Congress and the U.S. courts, executive branch sources tell HUMAN EVENTS. In effect, the Obama administration is keeping two sets of books on the terrorist prisoners. According to rules established earlier this year, the Obama administration is required to send Congress notification of its intent to move or release any inmates at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba facility at least fifteen days before the action is accomplished. These notifications, called “risk assessments,” were supposed to give members of Congress sufficient information for them...

September 2, 2009                                 Wednesday of the Twenty-second Week                                 in Ordinary Time       Reading 1Responsorial PsalmGospel Reading 1Col 1:1-8 Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,and Timothy our brother, to the holy ones and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae:grace to you and peace from God our Father. We always give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,when we pray for you,for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesusand the love that...

Boeing (BA) CEO Jim McNerney is eager to move the company to China. Whether moving Boeing to China means shifting its headquarters from Chicago to Beijing is up in the air. But Boeing already has $600 million in supplier partnerships with China -- such as a deal with Shenyang Aircraft Corporation to build an assembly for the 787's vertical fin. And Stan Sorscher, who spent 20 years at Boeing before taking a post at the Society of Professional Engineers in Aerospace (SPEEA) in 2000, told me that McNerney is hooked on the idea of shifting Boeing to China.

WASHINGTON -- A top White House adviser said Tuesday he doubts two Senate Republicans at the center of health-care talks are negotiating seriously, as Democrats adopted a new, more confrontational tone accusing key Republicans of blocking change. * * * * * Democrats hope to persuade the public that Republicans are to blame for the stalemate and shift opinion in favor of an overhaul. They want to build enough momentum to win support from a small number of moderate Republicans, in particular the two senators from Maine.

Obama Losing Support Among Democrats (Sorry, it's on Huffington Post, which can't only be linked to.)

I miss the old Mike Huckabee. No, not the circa-1998 porker who could have given John Madden a run for his money in a turducken eating contest; I mean the Mike Huckabee of 2007—the charming, warm-hearted country preacher who, it seemed, genuinely wanted to give a good account of his religion and his political ideology. This was the Huckabee who, rather than simply catering to anti-abortion conservatives with fiery rhetoric, challenged those who call themselves pro-life to think about the implications of that label. “I believe that life begins at conception,” he told Time in March ’07, “but I don’t...

Dude, I’ll do a pinky swear and, perhaps, accept a triple dog dare. But actual cutting? Blood spilled a la eighth-graders heading off to look at a body one of their classmates found in the woods?

I'm speechless.