Free Republic

This past Saturday, Sept. 11, there were somber ceremonies, moments of silence and prayers in remembrance of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the terrorist attacks on that date in 2001. American Flags fluttered in abundance — many at half staff — outside homes and businesses throughout the nation. Hearts undoubtedly swelled a little extra as our national anthem was played at high school, college and professional football stadiums over the weekend. For this proud American, the sounds of "The Star-Spangled Banner" are even more poignant. This is not only because I, like millions of my fellow countrymen, watched in...

According to Keynesian economists, government hiring stimulates the private sector during a recession because government employees go out and spend much of their paychecks in the private sector, and extra demand is exactly what the private sector needs during a recession. But this year’s experience with census hiring contradicts that view. Keynesians acknowledge that, someday, the private sector will pay taxes to finance the salaries and benefits of government employees, but this cost is said to be offset by the additional demand for goods and services produced in the private sector, which have those government employees as their customers.

U.S. and Iraqi forces raided a neighborhood in the longtime Sunni Muslim insurgent stronghold of Fallujah early Wednesday, Iraqi officials said, killing seven people in the deadliest joint operation since President Barack Obama announced the end of the American combat mission in Iraq two weeks ago. The incident underscored how American forces remain engaged in offensive operations despite Obama's declaration...

Scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) are launching a groundbreaking new project to investigate the benefits of broccoli in the fight against osteoarthritis. Initial laboratory research at UEA has found that a compound in broccoli called sulforaphane blocks the enzymes that cause joint destruction in osteoarthritis – the most common form of arthritis. Broccoli has previously been associated with reduced cancer risk but this is the first major study into its effects on joint health. With funding from both Arthritis Research UK and the Diet and Health Research Industry Club (DRINC), the £650,000 project will explore how sulforaphane...

Driving a well-used pickup truck with his tree-climbing dog “Cory” in the bed, David Bamberger wheels out of a picturesque field up slippery limestone scrabble. The day is a Hill County idyll, with one tour-jarring revelation. As we climb a small rise, an elevated deer blind comes into view. Bamberger’s displeasure is obvious. Nodding back down the hill toward a winch not more than 100 yards away that will hold a deer feeder when hunting season opens in November, he nearly spits. “You might as well be at a shooting range.” Yet this is where every one of his “high-dollar”...

Former Rep. Joseph DioGuardi of New York won the Republican nomination to take on Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in November’s election. With 85 percent of the precincts counted in yesterday’s primary, DioGuardi had 42 percent of the vote, according to the Associated Press. David Malpass, a former Bear Stearns Cos. chief economist, had 38 percent and Bruce Blakeman, a lawyer, had 20 percent. DioGuardi, 69, represented the northern New York City suburbs in the House from 1985 to 1989. He and Gillibrand, 43, are running to serve the two years remaining in the term won in 2006 by Hillary Clinton,...

On September 13 Gold hit a new high of $1,274.00 per ounce. Gold has often been the safe haven for investors fearful of future financial downturns and political upheavals. As such it also serves as a barometer of the success or failure of economic policy being pursued by the major western economies, particularly the United States. A cursory examination of the price of Gold the day after a Presidential election in the United States versus the price of Gold 22 months thereafter as well as the end of a President's first term shows more than any government issued statistic or...

New York City officials want to take their smoking ban outdoors. City officials announced new legislation on Wednesday that would outlaw smoking in parks, beaches, marinas, boardwalks That means no smoking in Central Park or on the Coney Island boardwalk. Violators could be issued quality-of-life summonses by the parks department and pedestrian plazas throughout the city.

Scientists reported new evidence on the effectiveness of that old folk remedy — cranberry juice — for urinary tract infections at the ACS' 240th National Meeting. "A number of controlled clinical trials — these are carefully designed and conducted scientific studies done in humans — have concluded that cranberry juice really is effective for preventing urinary tract infections," said Terri Anne Camesano, Ph.D., who led the study. "That has important implications, considering the size of the problem and the health care costs involved." Estimates suggest that urinary tract infections (UTIs) account for about 8 million medical visits each year, at...

White Castle, weed and baggy pants. It has all the elements of a comedy, but throw in a concealed handgun, a suspected drug deal and a wardrobe malfunction, and it's a Minnesota Court of Appeals case that even compelled a judge to quote an "American Idol" audition. St. Paul police officer Kara Breci and her partner spotted a possible drug deal in a car at a White Castle parking lot in November 2008. They ordered the men out of their vehicle and told them to put their hands in the air. That's when suspect Frank Irving Wiggins' baggy pants, already...

The owner of a Los Angeles home assessed at $450,000 pays more than $750 a year to finance bonds for the Los Angeles Unified School District. Which is why it is galling to some that the district has spent, or misspent, more than half-a-billion dollars on a new school, while laying off hundreds of teachers, increasing class sizes and starting the school year a week later than usual - to save money. And what a school it is. The campus was built on the site of the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard, where its namesake, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated...

Win, lose or draw, Mike Castle was always heading into the Delaware Republican primary as a member of an endangered species. Conservative big game hunters like to call them "RINOs." The popular acronym for "Republican in Name Only" has emerged as one of the Tea Party movement's leading epithets of choice, alongside "liberal" and "progressive." The upshot is that big-government establishment Republicans are no safer from conservative wrath than the Democrats whose legislation they so often support. At some point, millions of grassroots conservatives across the country decided there was something wrong, almost abusive, about the right's relationship with the...

Israeli historian Yaacov Lozowick is in favor of continuing the settlement freeze that’s set to expire later this month — as long as the freeze is only in West Bank settlements that are actually up for discussion and that might plausibly be dismantled in a future peace deal with Palestinians. “Not in Modi’in Illit,” he said, referring to an ultra-Orthodox settlement immediately adjacent the Green Line, “which will remain in Israel no matter what, and certainly not in any part of Jerusalem.” Israel annexed all of Jerusalem decades ago. And while very few Jews move to and build in Arab...

EXCERPT "Now is the time for Republicans to rally behind their nominee, Christine O'Donnell. She ran an impressive campaign. I believe it is important we support her so we can win back the U.S. Senate this fall."

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Frontier families kept a shotgun above the mantle, always at the ready, to protect their children from wandering predators. Every generation has had hardships and obstacles to overcome. As a parent today, you face issues no other generation before you has had to face. The predators that threaten your family are evil, unseen and opportunistic. They sneak through your backdoor, as laws that pass with little notice. They lurk in our courtrooms, where your parental rights are whittled away without announcement. They thrive in classrooms, where politically correct ideals are taught, and traditional values and childhood innocence are lost....

Many people wear military camouflage as a fashion statement, but not many can say they've worn the real fatigues of an American service member. Now a local business woman is giving new life to retired uniforms. Eve Baum moved to Central Pennsylvania from Canada six years ago. Armed with a degree in fashion design, she started a small handbag business from home. But she says "something" was missing. "I was doing some life searching," Baum said. "I wanted to do something with a purpose." In 2007, that purpose came in the form of a local soldier who wanted to honor...

Huxley meets George Orwell's Newspeak Dictionary and Tom Wolfe's "starting from zero" — soon to be playing at your local arthouse cinema in a new film starring Keira Knightley and Charlotte Rampling. In the new film Never Let Me Go, set at an eerie school in an alternate-reality England, a schoolmistress declares to her classroom of wide-eyed young charges: “The tide is not with forward thinking. It never is. No, the tide is with the entrenched mindset!” The children dutifully applaud.It’s a marrow-chilling moment because the matter that has brought the educator (played by a devastatingly heartless Charlotte Rampling) to...

“REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER”!!!! Those words had sounded so strong like it was yesterday, in a number of Republican primaries. The message that which was sent out loud and clear by the election of tea party and conservative talk radio show supporting candidates for the USA House, Senate, and a number of state governing positions. USA House of Representative and Minority Leader John Boehner, (R/MD), spoke in no uncertain terms, WARNING both the Democrats AND the Republicans as well, RINOS in a special way that the American people are simply “fed up” and cannot take it anymore, thus the wins by...

Scientists studying sunspots for the past 2 decades have concluded that the magnetic field that triggers their formation has been steadily declining. If the current trend continues, by 2016 the sun's face may become spotless and remain that way for decades—a phenomenon that in the 17th century coincided with a prolonged period of cooling on Earth. Sunspots appear when upwellings of the sun's magnetic field trap ionized plasma—or electrically charged, superheated gas—on the surface. Normally, the gas would release its heat and sink back below the surface, but the magnetic field inhibits this process. From Earth, the relatively cool surface...