Free Republic

Ifs, Ands and Buts by Ari Bussel “I understand what you are saying, Ari, the rockets launched at the City of Sderot created eight long years of horror and hardship, but…” or “the significance there was not a maritime route to Gaza is noteworthy, but there is, after all, a naval blockade causing the population to starve…” and a new all-time favorite accepted by Jews and Palestinians alike: “The Palestinians are eager for a two state solution, people living side by side in peace, but the right-wing Netanyahu Government is blocking any prospects for peace.” There always seems to be...

The British surrogate mother who was carrying Osama Bin Laden's twin grandchildren has suffered a miscarriage. Louise Pollard was ten weeks into her pregnancy when she lost the children conceived by IVF using the sperm of Bin Laden's son Omar and the eggs of his 54-year-old British wife, Zaina, who was previously known as Jane Felix-Browne.  Miss Pollard was travelling in Syria with Mrs Bin Laden when she was attacked by two men as she walked alone from a cafe to her accommodation late at night.    (edit)   There was no heart beat,' said Miss Pollard, who has...

GOSHEN — Starting Monday, everyone who shows up for jury duty in New York will be handed a questionnaire that asks for their race and ethnic background. The intent — to make sure jury pools are a fair cross-section of their communities — is pure, but the execution comes across as a little "don't ask, don't tell." The requirement was created by Judiciary Law Section 528, newly minted on June 25 by Gov. David Paterson's signature. In guidance sent out by the state Office of Court Administration, jury commissioners are instructed to hand out the information cards to jurors. They...

The San Francisco Gate is reporting Jerry Brown has a three-ring binder containing ideas on how he will balance the budget if elected Governor of California. Of course, its all secret and Californians have to elect him to find out what is in it. This sounds a lot like Nancy Pelosi's "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it" Obamacare strategy. We all know how that has worked out in the minds of voters. When the state attorney general and Democratic gubernatorial nominee recently visited The Chronicle's editorial board, he brought with...

Redefining “Viable” by Margot Sanger-Katz ’02 Nancy Moran is studying the organisms with the world’s smallest genomes. The bacteria she examines—many of which she discovered—are at the very edge of viable life. “We are interested in what allows them to be this small—to live without genes that are considered to be essential in other organisms,” she says. Moran, an evolutionary biologist and past MacArthur “genius” grant winner, recently came to the Microbial Diversity Institute from the University of Arizona. She came upon the tiny genomes by studying insect biology. Several insect species, she discovered, have evolved for millions of years...

Sept 12 2010, Freedom Radio Live http://www.blogtalkradio.com/freedom 8 pm EST TONIGHT Tonights episode will be a LIVE "Best of" Show, our first. Yes, just you, me, and some of our best interviews. I'll be live on the air and live in the BTR chat and so will you. Expect to hear an uplifting show with our favorite recent past interviews with Andrew McCarthy, Tim Brown, DB Sweeney, Andrew Sullivan and more in honor of those who perished on September 11th on that most horrible of days, and to exemplify the character that is the average yet exceptional American who will...

What are your views on the controversy over the Ground Zero mosque, or as it’s also been described, the Islamic cultural centre in New York? I don’t have all the facts here, but the plan is to build a 15-storey centre and this is a Muslim project, even if it’s called a Cordoba centre and it’s for everyone and not only for Muslims. It is two blocks from Ground Zero with a mosque for 2,000 people and so on. Even if you say this project aims to build a greater understanding and a new dialogue with American Christians and so...

Let's get one thing straight, all of you millennials out there. If it weren't for us baby boomers, most of you wouldn't be here. Literally. We are your parents. You sprung from our wombs, from our love. We don't just deserve your respect; we deserve your eternal gratitude — for the food you ate, for the clothes you wore, for the roofs over your heads. By the way, we're still giving food, clothes and roofs to the more than 10 million of you who still live in our homes. And what have you millennials — the 50 million Americans born...

"...On its present course, as Dennis Prager put it, America “will be a large Sweden, and just as influential as the smaller one.” And that’s the optimistic scenario — because the only reason Sweden can be Sweden and Germany Germany and France France is that America is America. Who will cushion America’s decline as America cushioned Europe’s?"

REHOBOTH BEACH, Del.— Soon after Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski lost her August primary and became the latest casualty of the tea party’s assault on the GOP establishment, she placed a call to Rep. Mike Castle, another Republican Party favorite facing an insurgent challenger. Her message? “They'll come at you hard, so just be prepared," Castle told POLITICO. Murkowski’s warning proved prescient and her experience instructive. While her defeat at the hands of tea party-backed challenger Joe Miller reverberated across the country, nowhere did it have more impact than in tiny Delaware, where Castle once looked to be a runaway winner...

Romans 12:2 Be not Conformed to this World: But be ye Transformed by the Renewing of your Mind, That ye May Prove what is that Good, and Acceptable, and Perfect, Will of God.

My friends all wait. They wait to make use of their degrees. They wait for a job to open. They wait to finish graduate school. Again. They all wait. The economy stinks. It stunk before we started earning salaries. The job market is nonexistent. Even small colleges are filled up. The technology we mastered as curious children is sitting there, but we can't do anything with it. No, it's too busy. It's being used by you people. And the jobs? You people. The schools? Again, you people. You baby boomers. You're why we're waiting. Like every generation before us, my...

Good news folks... the "no skin in the game" mortgage is back. You know the game right? It's a one sided bet where the buyer can only win. If the house goes up, you pocket that and hopefully get that granite countertop you so deserve with the home equity. If it doesn't go up.... you walk - but only after living in the home rent free for at least 18-22 months as you strategically default your way to a mountain of savings while waiting for the sheriff to show up. If you are smart you can save at least $30K...

It was only when the coin was later identified as Viking that the game heated up. By then poor Mellegren -- who, Beachcombing must say was someone with a reputation for integrity -- had passed away. Beachcombing has no illusions about much of the nonsense written about pre-Columbian visits to North America. But in this case he would give a thumb and a half followed by two cheers and three quarters. There is a good chance that this really is what it seems: A European coin that found its way to North America in the twelfth century. Minted in Norway,...

BANGALORE: The Union Commerce & Industry ministry is in the process of formulating a draft policy to attract investments for setting up mega manufacturing hubs in the country. Delivering the keynote address at the EEPC India National Awards for Export Excellence for 2008-09 here on Friday, Union commerce & industry minister Anand Sharma said the ministry is in the final stages of formulating the policy and is most likely to be placed before the inter-ministerial group by the end of October this year. Mr Sharma said such policy will facilitate timely approval and clearances of investments needed for the large...

The Congressional Budget Office is warning that the rapidly growing federal debt could reach crisis proportions if it isn’t hemmed in soon. “When you owe money you have to pay it back with interest,” the CBO wrote. “For this to be feasible your future income stream has to grow faster than the interest rate on that debt. When economic growth fails to match debt repayment requirements default and bankruptcy are the result.” US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner dismissed the CBO report as “out of touch with modern monetary realities. Federal debt isn’t like private debt. Private debtors have to worry...

SHANGHAI — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is engaging in a little window-shopping of China's new high-speed train lines while peddling Californian exports and tourism in the world's second-largest economy. His own state budget $19 billion in the red, Schwarzenegger says he is hoping for some "creative financing" from Asia to help lower costs and get California's proposed high-speed rail lines up and running. Industry experts say cash-rich China may be best placed to help with funding, and less risk averse than others whose banks are still recovering from the financial crisis. That could prove a key competitive advantage as it goes...

The U.S. Economic Glass Isn't Half Full - It's Cracked Craig Taylor September 12, 2010 Let me share with you a few survey results on how your fellow Americans feel about where they stand in life today. 92% say the US is still in recession 65% feared double-dip precession 57% are fearful about running out of money in the next year 44% could easily see their family slipping into bankruptcy if things get worse 42% say that they or their spouse have had wages or salary reduced 34% say they or their spouse lost their job or has been laid...

Residents returned Sunday to the ruined hillsides of their suburban San Francisco neighborhood, three days after a natural gas pipeline exploded into a deadly fireball. A nearby segment of the line was due to be replaced, the utility responsible said, because it ran through a heavily urbanized area and the risk of failure was "unacceptably high." That 30-inch diameter pipe about two and a half miles north was installed in 1948, and was slated to be swapped for new 24-inch pipe. But investigators still don't know what caused the blast Thursday night, and even as dozens of people returned to...

Local residents discovered through print and televised news reports last week that the imam at the center of the controversy over the proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque near the former World Trade Center site lives in Hudson County and is a property owner here.