Free Republic

Bloody clothes found at student’s lab, police say Missing Yale graduate student was set to get married Sunday in N.Y. Sept . 12, 2009 NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Investigators discovered bloody clothes at a Yale University laboratory building where a 24-year-old graduate student went missing just days before her wedding, NBC News confirmed. Items were found in a ceiling inside the building, New Haven police told the Yale Daily News, the university newspaper. Authorities planned to release more details during a press conference Saturday. Police poured over blueprints and surveillance video footage that show Annie Le had swiped her identification...

NEA Education Insider: September 11, 2009 CONGRESS RETURNS TO WORK: TIME FOR ACTION ON HEALTH CARE REFORM! Congress returned to work this week after an August recess dominated by contentious debates on health care reform. Now, it is time for action. Click here to call your Senators and tell them enough politicking, it's time to get real health reform done. We've already made historic progress. Three committees in the House have passed strong health reform bills and referred them to the floor. And the late Senator Kennedy's Committee has passed a strong bill as well. Still, some in the Senate...

Originally built in 1901, this walkway now serves as an aproach to Makinodromo, the famous climbing sector of El Chorro in Spain's Andalucia. And it makes the hairiest paths we've ever walked look bald by comparison!

Note: Photo included. SNIPPET: "That's the way Nick George, a senior at Pomona College, in California, sees what happened to him at the Philadelphia airport two Saturdays ago. George, of Wyncote, Montgomery County, was about to catch a Southwest flight back to school when stereo speakers in his backpack caught the eye of screeners at the metal detector. When they looked though his bag, George said, they found his Arabic/English flash cards, and escorted him to a side screening area. He figures it didn't help that his passport had stamps from Jordan, where he'd studied a semester, and Egypt and...

Barack Obama Starts US Talks With 'Axis of Evil': North Korea and Iran President Barack Obama has approved plans for the US to start direct talks with both North Korea and Iran, in a significant shift in policy. By Philip Sherwell in New York and David Eimer in Beijing 12 Sep 2009 Barack Obama's new approach marks a significant change in American diplomacy The State Department said it would meet one-to-one with Pyongyang negotiators in an effort to persuade the reclusive Stalinist state to return to multilateral talks on dismantling its nuclear weapons programme. Washington has also accepted a vague...

On Friday, just in time for a soft news cycle, Pres. Obama announced a 35% punitive tariff on Chinese tires. Not only is this another example of Obama shifting policy and giving in to his left wing masters, this is the blue print for a second great depression. Obama campaigned to restore protectionism to the Democratic Party, so his Chinese tire decision is not out of character for a redistributionist leftie. Wisely, however, Obama has more recently changed his tune to say that protectionism is the wrong move during an economic decline. Still, with Card Check in the doldrums, Obama...

Authorities say a New Jersey teenager threatened to rape and kill his teacher if she did not give his entire class an "A++" for the last school year. Authorities say the 14-year-old boy made the threats in an e-mail sent in May. He has been identified only as a student at the Paterson Charter School for Science and Technology. He is also accused of threatening to rape the teacher's mother and sister if the grades were not changed within 48 hours. The boy turned himself in to Passaic County authorities Friday and was charged with making terroristic threats and criminal...

Venezuela recognizes independence of breakaway Georgian provinces 12:00 AM CDT on Friday, September 11, 2009 Los Angeles Times MOSCOW – Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez recognized the independence of the breakaway Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia on Thursday during a state visit to Russia. Venezuela becomes the third country, after Russia and Nicaragua, to acknowledge the national aspirations of the small rebel regions inside Georgia's internationally recognized borders. South Ossetia was at the heart of a brief war last year between Russia and Georgia. Russia has been accused of carrying out a de facto annexation of the two provinces....

Saturday, September 12, 2009 NRO at the 912 March   [Mark Hemingway] As journalist who wears his cynicism like badge of honor, to say that today's tea party protest wildly exceeded my expectations would be an understatement. I've yet to see a reliable estimate of the crowd size and the cops seemed bound and determined to keep any photographers away from any high vantage points, but I'd be shocked if it wasn't well into six figures. I've heard crowd-size estimates ranging from 350,000 to 1.5 million — the latter seems wildly optimistic, but the former figure would still be incredibly...

NRO at the 912 March [Mark Hemingway] As journalist who wears his cynicism like badge of honor, to say that today's tea party protest wildly exceeded my expectations would be an understatement. I've yet to see a reliable estimate of the crowd size and the cops seemed bound and determined to keep any photographers away from any high vantage points, but I'd be shocked if it wasn't well into six figures. I've heard crowd-size estimates ranging from 350,000 to 1.5 million — the latter seems wildly optimistic, but the former figure would still be incredibly impressive.. ... So many people...

Lithuania Parliament Rejects CIA Prison Probe By REUTERS Published: September 10, 2009 VILNIUS (Reuters) - Lithuania's parliament on Thursday rejected holding an inquiry into a U.S. report that the country hosted a secret CIA prison for al Qaeda suspects. ABC News reported in August that Lithuania was the third European country after Poland and Romania to have provided the Central Intelligence Agency with facilities for detaining and, possibly, interrogating suspects. "The committees have concluded that there is no factual information, confirming at least in part the media allegations, and also, that there is no ground to conduct any new investigation,"...

Note: The following text is a quote: TSA Implementing New Enhanced Threat Detection Capability at Checkpoints Nationwide Press Release WASHINGTON - The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced today it is further bolstering existing explosives detection capabilities by deploying additional tools to screen powdered substances at checkpoints. "Every day, TSA officers work at over 450 airports nationwide screening approximately 2 million passengers to keep the traveling public safe," said TSA Acting Administrator Gale Rossides. "These enhancements are part of TSA's efforts to stay ahead of emerging threats while continually strengthening our layered approach to security." Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) are experienced...

PHOENIX – Republicans in more than a dozen states opposed to President Barack Obama's push for health care overhaul have mounted state-driven efforts to block federal intervention in health care, with some early success.

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) – President Barack Obama warned Americans on Saturday not to be tricked by "scare tactics" he accused his opponents of using as he went on the road to rally support for his drive to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system

Money-losing Newsweek hopes to break even by 2011 and plans to as much as double its subscription rate over the next two years. Ann McDaniel, managing director of Newsweek, which is owned by The Washington Post Co., said the magazine will aim for a "smaller base of very committed subscribers and get more money from each of them," while speaking at The Post Co.'s annual shareholders meeting at the company's D.C. headquarters. Analysts suggested that the new Newsweek is modeling its editorial strategy on England's Economist, and now it appears to be doing the same thing with its business strategy....

Four contenders vying for the opportunity to challenge David Wu in Oregon’s first congressional district spoke before Labor Day’s Tax Referral Tea Party. As the event agenda was closely choreographed each contender was instructed to prepare for no more than three minutes of speaking time — not an easy task. How these contenders treated that limitation may tell us something about how they would represent the interests of Oregon’s first congressional district. Using the candidates treatment of the limitation as a yardstick, Doug Keller presented the best management, Rob Cornilles didn’t.

Court rules anti-Polish slogans lawful 12.09.2009 10:29 A German court in Greifswald, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has ruled that anti-Polish posters, displayed by the far-right NPD do not constitute a hate crime. The posters, displayed in the city of Loecknitz near the Polish border, as part of the NPD’s federal election campaign, include slogans such as “Stop the Polish invasion,” and “Border closed to criminals”. The German Ministry of Interior has notified the court in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern that it will be appealing against the decision, which it regards as an, “attack on human dignity and the peaceful coexistence of nations”. Germans go to the...

In 2007, the top 1% of U.S. families accounted for 23.5% of all personal income in the U.S., according to economists Emmanuel Saez of the University of California at Berkeley and Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics. That was a level not seen since the Roaring Twenties. The top 1%'s share appears to be falling fast. Mr. Saez and other economists expect income going to the top 1% of taxpayers — currently, those with about $400,000 a year — will drop to somewhere between 15% and 19% of all income by 2010. That still would leave income distribution...

It is typical in a facist regime that whistle blowers are prosecuted while those who were exposed as criminals and frauds get protection. This is why the House leaders want Joe Wilson punished for yelling a single word while a tax fraud heading the committee making tax laws doesn't even concern them. Of course the tax fraud belongs the "The Party" and they 'rally round their own crooks. It should come as no surprise that the young man and woman who exposed the vulgar corruption of ACORN is threatened with prosecution. It is one of the very common tactics of...