Free Republic

BURBANK, Calif., An upcoming episode of Nickelodeon's "SpongeBob SquarePants" has political commentators dueling about the social safety net. The Nov. 11 episode, the focus of reports by the New York Post and Fox News Channel, involves the titular character being fired from his job at the Krusty Krab fast food eatery so the owner, Mr. Krabs, can save "a whole nickel," The Hollywood Reporter reported Wednesday. SpongeBob's friend, Patrick, attempts to show him the ways of "glorious unemployment," but SpongeBob eventually decides the life is not for him. "Lest he sit around idly, mooching off the social services of Bikini...

The Manhattan Institute just published an analysis of the Obamacare individual policy insurance rates demonstrating the average cost will rise by 41% next year. The results are very similar to the 2009 PriceWaterhouseCoopers analysis that predicted insurance rates would rise by 47%. The biggest hikes will hit the young people, where rates will jump by an average of 98% for men and 58% for women. Insurance rates will also increase for everyone who is healthy and for all males. Obamacare’s taxpayer-funded subsidies will primarily benefit those approaching retirement, despite substantially higher average net worth compared to the young. The real...

Week 10 Thu Nov 7 Washington Redskins @ Minnesota Vikings Sun Nov 10 Buffalo Bills @ Pittsburgh Steelers Cincinnati Bengals @ Baltimore Ravens Detroit Lions @ Chicago Bears Jacksonville Jaguars @ Tennessee Titans Oakland Raiders @ New York Giants Philadelphia Eagles @ Green Bay Packers Seattle Seahawks @ Atlanta Falcons St. Louis Rams @ Indianapolis Colts Carolina Panthers @ San Francisco 49ers Denver Broncos @ San Diego Chargers Houston Texans @ Arizona Cardinals Dallas Cowboys @ New Orleans Saints Mon Nov 11 Miami Dolphins @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers Bye: Cleveland, Kansas City, New England, N.Y. Jets

LAST week, Johnson took a look at some of the advantages of bilingualism. These include better performance at tasks involving "executive function" (which involve the brain's ability to plan and prioritise), better defence against dementia in old age and—the obvious—the ability to speak a second language. One purported advantage was not mentioned, though. Many multilinguals report different personalities, or even different worldviews, when they speak their different languages. ..Benjamin Lee Whorf, an American linguist who died in 1941, held that each language encodes a worldview that significantly influences its speakers. Often called “Whorfianism”, this idea has its sceptics, including The...

House Republican leaders announced Wednesday the lower chamber will vote next week on a bill that would allow people to keep their health insurance plan if they like it. The vote hits at President Obama, who, during the debate over the Affordable Care Act, said people could keep their healthcare plans if they like them. Several people, however, have gotten cancelation notices because of ObamaCare's new standards. Late Wednesday afternoon, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) announced via Twitter that the bill would get a vote.

For those uninitiated in California gangster nomenclature, a quick primer: The number 14 is short hand for Nuestra Familia, the gang that claims the color red. N, of course, is the fourteenth letter in the alphabet and, therefore, the roman numerals XIV are often used to represent the gang. Now comes the Class of 2014 from Cosumnes Oaks High School in Elk Grove, a city of more than 150,000 residents near Sacramento, who’ve designed a class sweatshirt with an XIV emblazoned across the chest. To some parents, local police and students, the insignia is an imprint for the notorious gang...

The far right, feeling the sting of Ken Cuccinelli’s defeat in the Virginia gubernatorial race, have decided to blame the Republican National Committee. Understand it was the Virginia right wing that insisted on a closed convention and chased Bill Bolling out of the race. Understand that right-wing talk show hosts often implore their listeners not to give money to the RNC. And further understand that no poll before the final couple of days showed the race close. So why exactly is the RNC to blame?

Negotiators from Iran and six world powers convened on Thursday as American officials signaled that the United States is prepared to offer Iran limited relief from economic sanctions if Tehran agrees to halt its nuclear program and reverse part of it. Catherine Ashton, the foreign policy chief of the European Union, met Thursday morning with Mohammad Javed Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, to discuss the arrangements for the first day of talks. Mr. Zarif touted the possibility of a breakthrough in remarks to reporters, perhaps calculating that it might encourage Western concessions. “If everyone tries their best, we may have...

IF YOU speak two or more languages fluently, you may be familiar with the feeling that you act differently in them. I tend to be more excitable in Spanish and ruder in Hebrew, for instance, than I am in English. Now a study by Shai Danziger of Ben-Gurion University and Robert Ward of Bangor University, published in Psychological Science, has confirmed that the language you're speaking can affect the way you think.

Senate Republicans are spoiling for a fight this primary season as they try to take back control of the party from conservative activists. The strategy: prop up the most electable candidates — even if they are more moderate than ones demanded by tea party activists — and punish those who get in their way. After witnessing the business community help save the candidacy of Bradley Byrne, an establishment-backed candidate in a GOP runoff Tuesday for a House seat in Alabama, Republican senators are calling for the same type of support from well-funded GOP groups in Senate primaries next year. “If...

At 8:45 a.m. EST, Hatch was being interviewed on Fox & Friends and was asked about the loss of Cuccinelli to Clinton clone McAuliffe. His response was "Cuccinelli would have won if two Senators had not shut down the government." Outrageous! It is unclear whether one of the two he was referring to was his fellow Republican senator from Utah, Mike Lee. The other, of course, was Ted Cruz of Texas.

Archbishop Amel Shamon Nona of Mosul: The greatest challenge in facing death because of our faith is to continue to know this faith in such a way as to live it constantly and fullyHow can we live our faith in a time of great difficulty? What can we do for those who are persecuted because of their faith? To ask this question means above all interrogating ourselves about the meaning of our faith. In order to be able to speak about the time of persecution Christians must really know their own faith. In 2010, when I was appointed bishop of...

Tyrannosaurus rex: Scavenger or Predator? by Tim Clarey, Ph.D. * Tyrannosaurus rex looms in recent history as likely the most famous dinosaur that ever lived. The Jurassic Park movies pumped new life into its image as a savage predator. But how much of this is Hollywood hype and how much reflects science? Looking at the numbers, an adult T. rex weighed in at over five tons. If it were endothermic (i.e., warm-blooded), it would need to eat the equivalent of a full-grown, three-ton hadrosaur each week. If it were ectothermic (i.e., cold-blooded), it would only require a fifth to a...

Washington D.C., Nov 7, 2013 / 04:11 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A case before the U.S. Supreme Court is considering the ability of a town in New York to open meetings with prayer, and could have broader implications for religious identity in government settings. “Community members should have the freedom to pray without being censored,” said David Cortman, senior counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom, which is defending the town of Greece, N.Y. “Opening meetings with prayer is a cherished freedom that the authors of the Constitution practiced,” he explained in a press release. “Americans shouldn’t be forced to forfeit this freedom...

This is not SATIRE. Dingbat Wendy Davis has stated that she is pro-life. What Wendy Davis (great Texas Dingbat) said at UT-Brownsville is the following: [According to LifeSiteNews.com] “I am pro-life,” Davis said, according to the Valley Morning Star. “I care about the life of every child: every child that goes to bed hungry, every child that goes to bed without a proper education, every child that goes to bed without being able to be a part of the Texas dream, every woman and man who worry about their children’s future and their ability to provide for that future. I...

Last night during the opening act of the CMA Awards in Nashville, country music hosts Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood released their new smash hit: Obamacare by Morning, a spin off of George Strait's famous song, Amarillo by Morning. Underwood: Hey, do you have that Obamacare? Paisley: Obamacare, what' that? Underwood: Oh! It's great! It's great! I started signing up last Thursday and I'm almost done. Let's go to the website and get you signed up. Let's see, it can't be too hard right? Paisley: Why's it spinning? Underwood: Oh, it does that. Paisley: Why's it smoking? Underwood: Maybe we...

Weekly initial jobless claims are out. Claims fell 336,000 in the week ended November 2, basically in line with economist expectations of 335,000. That's down from 345,000 the week before (revised from 340,000). "The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending October 26 was 2,868,000, an increase of 4,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 2,864,000," according to the report.

KEYE TV has learned city council is considering a resolution that -- if passed -- would "restrict fast-food food restaurants from locating near areas that children frequent." That includes schools, municipal parks, child care centers and libraries... Convenience stores are also being targeted. The plan would offer food marts incentives to carry healthy food options.

Leaders of the Republican establishment, alarmed by the emergence of far-right and often unpredictable Tea Party candidates, are pushing their party to rethink how it chooses nominees and advocating changes they say would result in the selection of less extreme contenders. The push comes as the national Republican Party is grappling with vexing divisions over its identity and image, and mainstream leaders complain that more ideologically-driven conservatives are damaging the party with tactics like the government shutdown. The debate intensified on Wednesday after Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, the deeply conservative Republican candidate for governor of Virginia, lost a close race...

The family of 13-year-old Andy Lopez has filed a lawsuit in federal court over the fatal shooting of their son, claiming that Sonoma County Sheriff's deputy Erick Gelhaus has a history of reckless acts and "shot without provocation or cause.".... At a Monday press conference... attorney Arnoldo Casillas declared the Santa Rosa Police Department's investigation into the shooting would be "a whitewash" ..... According to Casillas, only three seconds elapsed between the moment one of the deputies called for the boy to drop the gun and the moment Gelhaus began firing. Casillas spoke to reporters about the autopsy, which bears...