Free Republic

An officer who accidentally shot and killed a robbery victim last week was involved in another shooting this morning, this time while off-duty at an East Side restaurant. Officer William Karman had just gotten off work and was eating breakfast with relatives at La Gardenia Mexican Restaurant in the 1800 block of North Pine Street around 9 a.m. when two armed men entered an adjoining room and ordered a cashier to give them money, according to Police Chief William McManus. A patron tapped Karman, who was in uniform, and told him about the ongoing robbery. So Karman stood up, told...

I’ve been watching them breathe heavily all morning and into the afternoon about how much money Rob Miller, Wilson’s Democratic opponent last year, has pulled in since last night. The latest figure is $400,000 — a “shattering amount,” according to one Democratic mouthpiece. How stupid is this? Let us count the ways: 1. Wilson’s become an instant political celebrity and grassroots love object. He’ll make big bank off this too. 2. His district’s been Republican for fully 44 years. He beat Miller by eight points in November while Republicans all over the country were getting wiped out. Given the way...

Wednesday night Obama stated that the $500 billion he wants to take from Medicare will NOT result in any reduction in Medicare benefits. This is an out-and-out lie and I’ll prove it. I am a business systems analyst for the largest health claim processor in the country, and the third largest data warehouse in the world. My job is to ensure that our computer systems meet the business’ needs, thus I've have six years' experience in the regulatory, technical and business aspects of health insurance. Background on Medicare Advantage (Med Adv) Medicare Advantage was created in 1997/2003 to address...

Only a dummy would believe some of the preposterous promises and claims, made by President Obama, during his hazy healthcare speech to Congress and the nation on Wednesday evening. With con artist like confidence and arrogance, he makes the "something for nothing" promise that he can insure 46 million new people (correction: now he's mysteriously lowered it to 30 million) and pay for it by cutting "waste, fraud, and abuse"? What kind of gullible suckers does he take us for? I wonder if he'll keep this "waste, fraud, and abuse in the system if he doesn't get his bill (which,...

The Senate Finance Committee will release a health care reform bill as early as Tuesday, Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Friday. The bipartisan Gang of Six, which has been meeting for months, could gather for the last time Monday as Baucus said he aims to wrap up the negotiations. The senators could indicate at that point whether they will sign onto the bill, Baucus said. “We are starting to reach closure,” Baucus said after a rare Friday meeting of the group. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) would not say whether she will support the bill, or even if she is willing...

American chemists have made molecular 'daisy-chains' containing threaded rings that can be pulled taut or slackened by chemical stimuli. The polymers are a step towards making materials that stretch or contract on demand, and show great potential for applications such as actuators in nanomachinery or designing artificial muscles. 'Artificial muscle tissue is still a long way off, but we are starting to demonstrate the kind of systems where it could be possible,' says Robert Grubbs, who led the work at the California Institute of Technology, US. Grubbs won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2005 for his work on olefin metathesis reactions, which allow carbon-carbon...

I am honored to present my memorial to Aram Iskendarian. As I've spent the last few weeks doing research on this man I came to the realization that I wish I would have known him. He was a natural born leader with a calm exterior and a devoted father and husband to his family. A man I would have looked up to. Aram was 41 the day he died. He was a vice president at Cantor Fitzgerald, where he headed the global risk management group. That day he would have been working on the 101st floor of building 1. From...

MONTREAL – Politicians in Quebec are refusing to attend an event marking the 250th anniversary of a battle between the French and British that paved the way for Canada's creation because of plans for the reading of a terror group's manifesto at the celebration. Quebec Premier Jean Charest, Quebec City Cabinet Minister Sam Hamad and Quebec City Mayor Regis Labeaume said this week they would not take part in a commemoration that is to include a reading of a Front de Liberation du Quebec text. The reading is scheduled to take place this weekend on the Plains of Abraham, the...

I remember the tower burning; the second tower struck. I remember the horrific vision, surreal, of men and women leaping and falling to their deaths from the burning towers. The only choice left to them, how to die. I remember the scream of sirens, and the screams of onlookers. I remember the resolute faces of rescue workers. I remember the burning towers falling. I remember three firemen raising our flag on a pile of smoking rubble. I remember the celebrations in the streets of Gaza (before Arafat threatened death to any who dared broadcast such images). And the Palestinians were...

AH-64 Apache from the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade catches a Taliban IED team planting a roadside bomb. Flying Allah-chunks goodness ensues...

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano is charged with securing our nation’s borders and ensuring the safety of all Americans. Who is this woman that the LA Times called "The Immigration Law Enforcer," the first governor to send the AZ National Guard to the border (at Federal expense)? In her first eight months in office, her position on illegal immigration is becoming very clear. Even given all the rhetoric and rattling of mighty swords, it should not be a surprise. We need only look at her total record as Governor of Arizona to see where she really stands...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama sought to rally Americans behind the war in Afghanistan on the eighth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States as opinion polls show faltering public support for the conflict. "Let us renew our resolve against those who perpetrated this barbaric act and plot against us still," Obama said on Friday at a somber ceremony attended by about 500 people under rain-filled skies at the Pentagon. "In pursuit of al Qaeda and its extremist allies we will never falter," he said, before laying a wreath at a memorial for those killed at...

The latest installment by reader and occasional contributor Loud Lion: We huddled and hugged in that office that day. We learned of 2801 who died on that day. But how can we forget the stories not told. The story of the husband on a plane, or the son getting coffee. Of the stock exchange manager who can not talk of what he saw that day. Or the story of the friend stuck in a tunnel as horrors played above her. Or the law school friend whose hand was on the door to tower one when the first plane hit. The...

The Theory is Now a Conspiracy, And Facts Don't Lie By JB Williams on (Sep 11, 09) Though we live in an era when all undesirable facts are often blindly labeled “conspiracy theories” by political operatives with an agenda at risk, a very real conspiracy unfolds every now and then. While it is indeed true that not all theories are actual conspiracies, like when Hillary Clinton developed an imaginary “right-wing conspiracy” out to get her husband, when in fact, the semen stained dress provided all the necessary (but unfriendly) facts and a perfectly logical explanation for all of those nasty...

Historical moments, frozen and encapsulated in each individual's memory, sometimes define whole generations. These moments spark familiar "where-were-you-when..." conversation starters that mysteriously have the power to weld otherwise quite disparate people into a cohesive voice. My own generation had had three of them before we even reached adulthood. JFK, MLK and RFK. That trio of assassinations taught me and so many others the unforgettable lessons about the fragility of life and how easily the illusion of worldly security can be shattered in a single instant. But nothing -- absolutely nothing -- had ever prepared me for the Richter-Scale-10 shift in...

A local church switched from Pepsi products to Coca-Cola, but it's not because they don't like the taste of the product. The Bell Shoals Baptist church in Brandon got rid of the products as part of the American Family Association's boycott.

History-like hindsight-is supposed to be 20:20, but the deliberate partisan, political divide regarding the invasion of Iraq makes that hard. It's not a new phenomenon. Long ago it was said that the true story of a war can't be told until the last of its veterans has passed away, and only a few months ago did the last World War One veteran go to his great reward. For decades after the Civil War (and some would argue even today) the debate raged on, and the healing of Southern Reconstruction didn't really start culturally until the unity of the Spanish-American War...

A millionaire businessman is facing jail for attacking a career criminal who had held his family hostage at knifepoint. Munir Hussain, 52, was told he would be killed when three raiders invaded his home. He and his wife, their teenage daughter and two sons were ordered to lie on the floor of the living room with their hands behind their backs. But the Hussains' teenage son managed to escape through a window and when the men realised that, two of them fled. Hussain then threw a coffee table at the third man, 56-year-old Walid Salem, hitting him in the face....

WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline)- A U.S. Senate panel is considering proposals aimed at decreasing the number of medical malpractice lawsuits filed in already bogged down courts.

Posted by: on September 11, 2009 at 9:48 am That’s what people have been asking all week. The obvious next in line are Cass Sustein, the newly confirmed “regulation czar”; Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy Carol Browner—a “socialist” who wants to kill your air conditioner; and Mark “He strikes me as a Marxist” Lloyd, who works at the FCC. As a general policy, I prefer not to give ink to hatemongering—and I acknowledge that blaming Beck for Jones’s resignation unnecessarily oversimplifies what happened. But things are getting pretty hairy out there, so this...