Free Republic

The Making of a Mayor By Jay Nordlinger Friends, there is a very interesting mayor in San Ramon, Calif., some 40 miles east of San Francisco. His name is H. Abram Wilson. I talked to him the other day — by phone (from New York), not in the Bay Area, alas. Not every American is entitled to perfect weather and beautiful surroundings. You might like to get to know Wilson a little. I thought I would write him up, Impromptus-style: in bulleted bites. . Wilson is running for reelection again — and he is again running unopposed. Next year, he...

• He waged a campaign against dining halls serving Lucky Charms. You see, besides being magically delicious, O’Keefe thought the cereal was offensive to Irish Americans. Now that's funny lol.......

After 100 years, automobiles still need engine oil, transmission fluid, brake fluid, antifreeze, power-steering fluid, and so on. Wouldn't it be great if just a single multipurpose fluid could be circulated from a central reservoir? Each part would use only the needed properties of the fluid, exclude detrimental properties, and then send it back. The new system’s worldwide impact would ensure a huge market--and academic honors--for the clever developers. This lucrative breakthrough, however, would not be pioneering. Just such a brilliant integration of fluid properties to the diverse needs of the physical body has already been achieved in human blood--in...

Army Tells Dad His Soldier-Son Killed in War ... But He Wasn't September 15, 2009 BUFFALO, New York — An Army unit is reviewing how it delivers information to families after a call to a western New York couple led them to believe their son had been killed in combat. Ray Jasper of Niagara Falls said he, his wife, Robin, and their extended family spent four hours Sunday mourning their son, Sgt. Jesse Jasper, before learning from his girlfriend that he was alive. The 26-year-old soldier called his father from Afghanistan to prove it after hearing about the mix-up. "Dad...

Manuka honey may kill bacteria by destroying key bacterial proteins. Dr Rowena Jenkins and colleagues from the University of Wales Institute - Cardiff investigated the mechanisms of manuka honey action and found that its anti-bacterial properties were not due solely to the sugars present in the honey. The work was presented this week (7-10 September), at the Society for General Microbiology's meeting at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. Meticillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was grown in the laboratory and treated with and without manuka honey for four hours. The experiment was repeated with sugar syrup to determine if the effects seen were...

Megan Fox transforms into a man-eating monster in Jennifer's Body, a very different film from Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody (Juno). The laughs in this bloody horrorfest come as Fox, a high school sex queen, ends up literally chowing down on some hunky guys in her class after being sacrificed in a satanic ritual.

Here is video of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on with Sean Hannity tonight, where he blasted former President Jimmy Carter for saying in an interview today that most opposition to President Obama is because "he is a black man." Gingrich said it is "destructive for America to suggest you cannot criticize the President without it being a racial act." Gingrich made an outstanding point by saying liberals can't believe anyone honestly disagrees with you - it's a sort of a "secular religion" - so you assume there is some kind of deeper motivation. They just won't accept that there...

On August 8, 2009 a person named Ryan working at "Fromaginations on the Square" called the Madison police to ask if there was a "law in the state of Wisconsin that allows you to carry a gun," reporting that "a gentleman walked past me with a rather large rather large gun attached to his hip . . . he was walking north toward State Street." Replied the police dispatcher, "[n]o there is not . . . let me get someone to check that area to see if we can find 'em because there is no such law here." . ....

Connecticut police are searching the apartment of a Yale University animal research technician, who was named late Tuesday night as a person of interest in the murder of a 24-year-old grad student. Raymond Clark was taken into custody by police Tuesday night after police served a warrant on his home and his body.

WASHINGTON -- Federal and local authorities are considering pulling back on funding Acorn, a leading community organizing group, after videos showed employees at a number of Acorn offices allegedly advising a filmmaker how to evade taxes in operating a brothel. New York City is "treating this very seriously," a spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, adding that the city will await an investigation by the Brooklyn district attorney before deciding whether to curtail funding the city channels to Acorn. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn, is the landlord for some of the city's affordable housing units....

Video

"GIMF:: The Response will be Harsh, Cross-worshipers and Puppet Salafis September 16, 2009 Posted by admin in : Global Islamic Media Front, Jihad , trackback" SNIPPET: "And we say to the enemies - you well know the size of what we can o, and the response will be harsh and the testimony will be in what you see, not in what you hear. The fever has begun Allah is the Master of His domain, but most people know this not General Leadership, GIMF"

The community organizing group ACORN is under attack after hidden-camera videos captured its workers giving advice on falsifying taxes to conservative activists posing as a pimp and a prostitute. The Senate voted Monday to block ACORN from getting any Housing and Urban Development grants, and Republican leaders in Congress are calling for an investigation. The Census Bureau severed ties with the group last week for all work related to the 2010 census. ACORN has dismissed what it calls a concerted political attack, and says it plans to sue the activists who made the videos, the Web site that posted them...

I've been on FR for over a decade and now I've messed up my fonts. Geez this is embarrassing! Help!

Recently confirmed by the Senate, academic Cass Sunstein from Harvard law School is now the Obama Administration's "regulatory czar." Gun Owners of America has warned: Expect problems! . . . [But] in 2007 Professor Sunstein gave a fascinating lecture in which . . . [n]ot only does Sunstein note at time hack 37:20 that gun control advocates' claims that gun control contributes fantastically to public safety "appears not to be sufficiently supported in social science," but more importantly, at the end of his lecture, he states at time hack 57:47: "And here's a point for the Second Amendment advocates, a...

"If" by chance, the lady who admitted on todays ACORN video to setting up and then killing her husband, If she really did kill and then get off on an abuse defense .. Can they retry the case? What about the double jeopardy law? Just curious. Thanks

Sarah Palin isn’t vice president. And she probably won’t ever be president. Heck - she’s not even a governor anymore. But the Alaskan pol has achieved one measure of fame - someone’s written an opera about her. “Say It Ain’t So, Joe,” a presentation by Guerilla Opera, opens Saturday at Boston Conservatory’s Zack Box Theater. The work is composer Curtis Hughes’ musical take on America’s favorite moose-hunting winker, you betcha. It focuses on that contentious - and sometimes comical - debate from October 2008 between Palin and Joe Biden, though the show also includes cameos from Hillary Clinton, Gwen Ifill,...

One of the criticisms of Obamacare is how will doctors be able to handle the extra patients if all of a sudden all the uninsured become part of their case load. If he new study of doctors performed by IBD is to be believed, the problem will be worse than originally thought, as 45% of all doctors will consider leaving the profession if Obamacare is passed in its present form (take that American Medical Association). More than 800,000 doctors were practicing in 2006, the government says. Projecting the poll's finding onto that population, 360,000 doctors would consider quitting. YIKES, forget...

A leading group opposed to organized labor will release a web video Wednesday likening incoming AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka to notorious mafia leaders. The Workforce Fairness Institute (WFI) assembled a two-and-a-half minute, potentially incendiary web video likening the comparing leader of the powerful organized labor group to organized crime bosses. The video, featuring music in the background meant to mimic the soundtrack of mob classic "The Godfather," compares quotes from Trumka to words from mob dons like Carlo Gambino, John Gotti, Al Capone, and even the fictional "Don Corleone." "Mob Boss vs. Union Boss: Should it be so hard to...

Ahhh … if only spinning was this easy at the gym. Norah O’Donnell on the morning Joe takes on the unenviable task of explainning why the President’s favortie community organization is under fire, and why NBC hasn’t touched the story until now. I love this ….. “ACORN helps poor people get homes … and she was trying to explain to them, even though they were a pimp and a prostitute, how they could put it down on tax forms so they could get a house.” Actually no, Norah … the video shows they were aiding and abetting a couple trying...