Free Republic

After negotiating with help of US secretary of state, French FM stresses importance of Israel's security concerns, says there will be no deal; US diplomats tell 'LA Times' talks will continue at least into next week. France said on Saturday there was no certainty nuclear talks under way with Iran in Geneva would succeed because of major stumbling blocks over an initial proposed text on a deal, and the importance of Israel's security concerns. "As I speak to you, I cannot say there is any certainty that we can conclude" the talks, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on France...

If you ask journalism Professor Kevin Blackistone what he thinks about the special and controversial Northwestern University football jerseys adorned with an American flag, he’ll tell you the country should nix the playing of a “war anthem” before sporting events and that the NFL has bought into the “mythology” of a fallen soldier that once played for the Arizona Cardinals ...

The Lawrence Board of Registrars met Friday evening to vote on whether or not provisional ballots and absentee ballots would be added to the election totals of Lawrence Mayor Willie Lantigua or Challenger Dan Rivera. On Tuesday Rivera was declared the winner by 60 votes, but the day was marked with ballot machine mishaps, challenged votes and people voting in Lawrence after also voting in other communities. The Board of Registrars is comprised of Annie Medina, Larry Collopy and City Clerk Billy Maloney. After considering more than 41 provisional ballots and two absentee ballots that were “found” in the Election...

Nutrition is full of all kinds of nonsense. The worst examples are listed here, but unfortunately this is just the tip of the iceberg. Here are the top 13 nutrition lies that have made the world both sick and fat. Eggs are so incredibly nutritious that they’re often called “nature’s multivitamin.”The nutrients in them are enough to turn a single cell into an entire baby chicken.However, eggs have been demonized in the past because they contain a large amount of cholesterol, which was believed to increase the risk of heart disease.But the truth is that despite being high in cholesterol,...

Brookline — Brookline’s animal control officer was undergoing tests at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center on Tuesday, Nov. 5, after being knocked down by his own police vehicle while responding to a report of an aggressive turkey.

The Department of Labor has issued its monthly employment report and the item that will attract the most attention is that the unemployment rate marginally increased to 7.3 percent. That number is worthy of some attention, but I think it distracts attention from a far more important set of data. What we should be more worried about is the overall supply of employed workers. I don’t want to sound like a boring economist (is there any other kind?), but our economic well being is a function of what we produce, and and what we produce is a function of the...

HVIDOVRE, Denmark — As right-wing populists surge across Europe, rattling established political parties with their hostility toward immigration, austerity and the European Union, Mikkel Dencker of the Danish People’s Party has found yet another cause to stir public anger: pork meatballs missing from kindergartens. A member of Denmark’s Parliament and, he hopes, mayor of this commuter-belt town west of Copenhagen, Mr. Dencker is furious that some day care centers have removed meatballs, a staple of traditional Danish cuisine, from their cafeterias in deference to Islamic dietary rules. No matter that only a handful of kindergartens have actually done so. The...

The week's almost over, and political campaigns know as well as anyone that it's hard to get traction on a Friday afternoon. So the campaign of Kentucky Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes has decided to shake things up a bit.A little after 1 p.m., Grimes's campaign sent out a press blast inviting Mitch McConnell "to join her on gun range." The full text: As an NRA member, my strong support for the Second Amendment is unquestioned. I am proud of Kentucky's long-held gun ownership, sporting and hunting traditions. It is unfortunate that Senator McConnell is desperate to mislead Kentucky...

NEW YORK, - A defamation lawsuit in New York alleges a court-appointed psychiatrist told a judge a man who refused to take his son to McDonald's was an unfit parent. David Schorr, 43, a Manhattan attorney, filed a lawsuit in city Supreme Court alleging court-appointed psychiatrist Marilyn Schiller filed a report in his custody battle saying he was "wholly incapable of taking care of his son" and should be denied weekend visitation rights for refusing to take his 4-year-old son to the fast-food restaurant, the New York Post reported Friday. Schorr said the incident in question involved his son throwing...

We've all heard talk about the ObamaCare Death Spiral and now it appears we are in it with NO way out. Yesterday, Jeff Zients stated that fixing the ObamaCare website is much more difficult than anticipated and that it doesn't look like they will meet the goal of fixing it by Nov. 30. So what will happen when, in a few weeks, it is obvious to all that ObamaCare is hopelessly broken? The problem of stubbornly sticking with ObamaCare is that meanwhile millions of people are losing their health insurance plans without being able (or willing) to get new policies....

Take a look at them here, via indiegogo.com, the crowdfunding website which enables entrepreneurs to appeal to the world for funding for their big ideas. Two New York women called Ruth and Yuval – who only go by their first names, but don't let's judge – have formed a company called AR Wear (AR for Anti-Rape), which aims to produce "confidence and protection that can be worn". These items of underwear, feature cut-resistant fabrics, a "reinforced skeletal structure" around the crotch, and combination locks around the thighs and waist which are intended to allow women to "feel safer" whether "on...

In a post on the First Things blog today, Peter Leithart declares the “End of Protestantism.” It’s not at all clear, however, that he understands what he wants to end. He begins with a sociological observation about contemporary English non-conformists and uses that to leverage the definition of “Protestant,” which he proceeds to use as a foil to justify his refashioning of Protestantism.For those who aren’t aware, until recently, he was Wilson’s right-hand man at HQ in Moscow. His mission, in which he seems to have succeeded (at least according to Lane Keister), was to take the sting out of...

TMZ reports that during a deposition for a lawsuit against a magazine, Cruise claims he works harder than the US military or Olympic athletes. Asked if he accepted the assertion of his team that his work making movies is as difficult as fighting overseas, the actor responded: That's what it feels like... it was brutal, it was brutal. Later in the deposition, Cruise compared himself to an Olympic sprinter. Gold Star Widow Jane Horton, whose husband Sniper SPC Christopher Horton was KIA in Afghanistan on September 9, 2011, told TruthRevolt: The closestf Tom Cruise has ever gotten to fighting in...

Renisha McBride was driving through Dearborn Heights, Mich., early Saturday after she was involved in a car accident. When the Detroit teen, who is black, approached a stranger's house apparently looking for help around 3:40 a.m. in a predominantly white neighborhood, she was met with gunfire and killed. So let me get this straight: If you knock on someone's door looking for help, you run the risk of being shot in the head and killed? What the heck is this? And where is the national outrage over it? McBride, 19, was not breaking into this person's house, according to the...

Humans are genetically predisposed to raise children as a way of passing on their genes to the next generation. For some, the struggle to raise a child in decent conditions is becoming harder due to gross overpopulation and an increasingly strained global environment. This project approaches the problem of human reproduction in an age of overcrowding, overdevelopment and environmental crisis. With potential food shortages and a population of nearly seven billion people, would a woman consider incubating and giving birth to an endangered species such as a shark, tuna or dolphin? This project introduces the argument for giving birth to...

11/9/2013 – It was an almost anti-climactic start for the world championship. Magnus Carlsen was white in game one and chose an offbeat double fianchetto to face Vishy Anand’s Gruenfeld. No doubt he was hoping for a war of attrition to outplay the champion, but instead found himself force to accept a draw by repetition in 16 moves. A moral victory for the champ as he easily holds the challenger to a draw with black.

It’s getting both comical and frustrating to watch liberals rush a prevent-style defense in the wake of Obama’s most recently broken promise. The now laughable claim that “if you like your private insurance plan, you can keep your private insurance plan” is haunting Democrats across the nation. It’s hard not to call such a line – uttered well after the White House estimated millions would lose their insurance – anything other than an outright lie. Democrats Have Inventive Excuses for Obama's 'Keep Your Plan' Promise From the party that decided to parse the meaning of the word “is” in the...

I'll be the first person to admit how little I know about foreign affairs. I often think we have entirely too much involvement in the affairs of other countries and want America to be left alone. We need to tend to our own rat killing and for the most part, allow other countries to do the same. That doesn't mean we can not collaborate on certain issues, but I lean more than a little libertarian in my view of foreign affairs. Having said that, there are times when we have to stand by our allies, and we have a strong...

In the U.S. Capitol basement, an auditorium full of congressional staff grapples with the consequences of how their bosses upstairs wrote the Affordable Care Act. Starting Monday, they will have to choose a health care plan. "A lot of employees are planning to separate because of this," one man stood up and declared at the first-ever congressional orientation for Obamacare. By "separate," he meant quit. It was one of many sharp moments of concern at the two information sessions set up by House administrators Thursday. Both were closed to the press, but CNN was able to watch on an in-house...

There’s no question that the catastrophic debut of Obamacare -- including the website breakdown and the millions of pink-slip cancellations -- will be a great card for Republicans to play on the way to the 2014 midterm elections. No question. The president lied about his lies about keeping your health plans and doctors. And when he did finally apologize, he didn’t really say he was sorry. It’s also possible that we’ll see 10 million more insurance cancellations, leading to much higher premiums, bigger deductibilities, and more cutoffs between patients and their doctors. And employer-based cancellations will compound this disaster, with...