Free Republic

Fond du Lac — Union workers at Mercury Marine Inc. approved a hotly contested package of contract concessions aimed at keeping hundreds of jobs at the outboard-engine factory instead of sending the work to a nonunion plant in Oklahoma. The concessions were approved in a last-ditch vote Thursday and Friday after more than a week of union infighting over the company's refusal to budge from its demands. Among other things, the company sought a wage freeze and a 30% pay cut for new hires and workers called back from layoffs. Had the proposal been voted down, the company was threatening...

It's no surprise that the right-wing nuts are going after Van Jones, the Bay Area activist who is now Obama's green-jobs advisor. The loonies have picked up on the fact that Jones was one of 100 people (along with Daniel Ellsberg and Paul Hawken) who signed a letter raising questions about the government response to the 9/11 attacks. It's actually not that radical a letter; Indybay has posted it here. But what amazes me is how quickly people who aren't typically considered wackos have bought into this -- take, for example, the former wife of the mayor of San Francisco,...

Enlarge ImageGood catch. Using zebrafish, researchers were able to track down the gene that causes this giant mirror carp to have few, large scales. Credit: Oliver Hasselhoff A long-standing question in biology is how evolution tinkers with genes without mucking things up. The prevailing theory is that the genome has copies of critical genes, so that if mutations spoil one, there's a backup. Now researchers have new proof that evolution can work this way. The scientists tracked down a duplicated gene that made possible so-called mirror fish, which have large, reflective scales. "This is a valuable proof of concept...

Cass Sunstein speaking at Harvard Law School. (Photo: Matthew W. Hutchins, Harvard Law Record.) (CNSNews.com) – Cass Sunstein, President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), has advocated a policy under which the government would “presume” someone has consented to having his or her organs removed for transplantation into someone else when they die unless that person has explicitly indicated that his or her organs should not be taken. Under such a policy, hospitals would harvest organs from people who never gave permission for this to be done. Outlined in the 2008 book “Nudge:...

UNITED NATIONS – Less than 48 hours after WND reported that under the Obama administration the website for the United States mission to the United Nations had been scrubbed of its flag emblem and archives, those apparently have been restored. The new site had brought howls and criticisms from previous US/UN officials. "I think the loss of the American flag (from the home page) is a very telling symbol, that they still have the U.N. seal up there. They had that flag up there when I arrived (as ambassador). It was there when I got there and to replace it...

What do God and Barack Obama have in common? Neither one has a birth certificate. That's one of Rush Limbaugh's favorite jokes. It's funny. But, as with all humor, it contains only some truth. Because followers of Yeshua Ha'Mashiach – or Jesus the Christ – know He established Himself as the Messiah of the Jews and the Savior of the world by providing two genealogical records – one going all the way back to Adam and another tracing His kingly lineage back to Abraham. So, even if there were no birth certificates maintained 2,000 years ago in ancient Israel, there...

Poufed, permed or punctuated with pink and purple spikes, the hair styles of the 1980s exemplified the decade of excess. "It was all about big and extreme," says Snooky Bellomo, who with her sister Tish owns the Manic Panic stores, famous for their line of hair dyes in shades evocative of the Lite-Brite palette. Now, with miniskirts, leggings and neon fabrics once again wardrobe staples, ready your Aqua Net: Teases, crimps and other stiff coifs are rising up like "Thriller" zombies. But many other '80s 'dos are no longer don'ts. Here's a look at some of the vintage hair styles,...

FAIRBORN - A stolen $500 piece of silver and two dead suspects are what’s left of a bizarre home invasion that led to a four-hour police standoff. Bradley Fugate said he had just opened the front and back doors to let some cool air into his Huffman Avenue home Monday, Aug. 31, when two men came in the back door and put guns to his head. Less than 24 hours later, both of those men were dead, one at Fugate’s home Monday and the other after a Fairborn standoff Tuesday. “I didn’t know who they were, and they kept asking...

From a clearinghouse site on radical leftist/marxist Bay Area organizations:YOUTH EMPOWERMENT CENTER / CORPORATE DESTRUCTION CLUSTERS Description: Anti-capitalist money-funnel for radical youth indoctrination groups founded in Oakland, California in 2000, by foundation-guided merger of four existing youth organizing groups and based on the Tides Center fiscal-sponsorship model with a half million dollars of foundation money. YEC is fiscal sponsor of the four founding groups: C-Beyond (a Tides Center project - radical organizers) Youth Force Coalition (anti-prison group) SOUL - School of Unity and Liberation (racial / economic justice group) Underground Railroad (art and culture for revolution) and subsequent groups:...

Hon. James David Manning speaks about black people hating america just like Obama and Jeremiah Wright.

Amidst widespread concern among parents that the President’s address to school children this coming week is an attempt at indoctrination, the President’s Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, derided them as “silly.” “The President is all about the future,” Gibbs said. “It’s imperative that he reach young minds before they are calcified by the ideas of their parents. The speech and accompanying lesson plan are aimed at avoiding this calcification and energizing the momentum for change in the upcoming generation.” Critics contend that their concern isn’t over the speech itself. President Bush addressed school children in 1991. It’s the “accompanying lesson plan”...

Most Districts Make Viewing Optional for Students, but Some Are Tuning Out the President, Especially in GOP StrongholdsSchool districts across the nation are deciding whether to air President Barack Obama's back-to-school speech Tuesday, after what was billed as a motivational talk sparked the latest political protest against the White House. Mr. Obama plans to encourage children to achieve their educational goals in a televised speech from a Virginia high school at noon Tuesday, according to the White House. Lesson suggestions to accompany the speech at first encouraged students to write letters to themselves about ways in which they could "help...

Robert Carter III of Virginia was one of the richest men in Revolutionary America. (He would have ranked near the top of the Forbes 400 List if they would have had one then.) He owned 16 plantations, 70,000 acres, numerous mansions, and several companies involved in shipping, manufacturing, and banking. He was the second largest slaveholder in Virginia owning almost 500 slaves. Robert's fortune had been handed down to him from his grandfather and then his father. His grandfather had been so rich and powerful in Virginia that he had been given the nickname King Carter. Robert was born in 1728....

Van Jones Hearts Meg Whitman

These screenshots taken directly from ed.gov on what instructions the Dear Leader has for the children, remember this is Pre-k thru 6...sick...

FRED BARBASH: "The continued failure to devise and implement a sound and sustainable immigration policy threatens to weaken America’s economy, to jeopardize its diplomacy, and to imperil its national security," concludes a new Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Independent Task Force co-chaired by former Florida governor Jeb Bush and former White House chief of staff Thomas "Mack" McLarty. "The stakes are too high to fail," says the report. "If the United States continues to mishandle its immigration policy, it will damage one of the vital underpinnings of American prosperity and security, and could condemn the country to a long, slow...

CHICAGO (AP) -- DePaul University will offer a journalism class this fall focused on Twitter. The class is called "Digital Editing: From Breaking News to Tweets." It will focus on how to confirm and evaluate reports by citizen journalists, particularly in cases of breaking news. The class will also help students learn how to sort through information on the Web for story tips and context.

Daily Kos has it head in the sand trying to ignore the Van Jones Controversy. I guess if they pretend there is no Van Jones Controversy then it will go away. Very funny.

September 5, 2009                                 Saturday of the Twenty-second Week                                 in Ordinary Time       Reading 1Responsorial PsalmGospel Reading 1Col 1:21-23 Brothers and sisters:You once were alienated and hostile in mind because of evil deeds;God has now reconciled youin the fleshly Body of Christ through his death,to present you holy, without blemish,and irreproachable before him,provided that you persevere in the faith,firmly grounded, stable,and not shifting from the hope of the Gospel that you heard,which has been preached to every creature under heaven,of which I, Paul,...

A supporter of a Pennsylvania death row inmate denied that demonstrators were trying to upstage a long-planned dialogue between Oakland police and local youth Thursday night. If you believe that, perhaps I could interest you in purchasing a bridge located on the edge of West Oakland. More than 150 demonstrators marched from 14th Street and Broadway to the Oakland Federal Building to demand that the Justice Department... (read more...)