Free Republic

Yellen picked through the various arguments over what the seemingly contradictory data says: the faster-than-expected fall in the jobless rate to 6.2 percent from 7.3 percent a year ago, against the persistently extremely low labor force participation rate since the Great Recession, just 62.9 percent. Yellen agreed that there have been some structural changes that have affected the way the labor market signals tightening through indicators such as part-time work, the number of people leaving jobs, and wage gains - which have been virtually insignificant since the recession ended in 2009. But she insisted that the combined data that the...

--- snip “For two bloody months, an armed jihadist serial killer ran loose across the country. At least four innocent men died this spring and summer as acts of “vengeance” on behalf of aggrieved Muslims, the self-confessed murderer has now proclaimed.”

Two years of research by a Nigerian scientist has shown that sufferers of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease could be helped by punicalagin, a compound extracted from pomegranates. Olumayokun Olajide from the University of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire showed how punicalagin could inhibit inflammation in specialised brain cells known as micrologia. He also found the painful inflammation that accompanies illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis and Parkinson's disease could be reduced using the same drug. "We do know that regular consumption of pomegranate has a lot of health benefits, including prevention of neuro-inflammation related to dementia," Olajide added.

Building site of the first ever 3D printed estate in Gardiner, New York. New York City architect/contractor Adam Kushner begins construction of the first ever 3D printed estate, which features a 3D printed swimming pool, 4-bedroom, 2400 square foot home, and more. The 3D printer which will be a modified version of Enrico DiniÂ’s D-shape printer, will, if all goes as planned, eventually be able to automatically place rebar within the 3D printed house, as it prints. We have covered a lot of news concerning the 3D printing of houses, over the course of the last year or so. Whether...

When does a moment become a movement? Events such as the killing of unarmed, 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., can provide the moral shock that political movements need to build their ranks and bring attention to a community’s afflictions. They can be like the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 or the beating death of Matthew Shepard in 1998 — transformative episodes that remake perceptions and force a society to abandon abhorrent practices. Or they can be like the 1991 beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers: a horrific moment that failed to create a sustained...

EXCLUSIVE: Mark David Chapman must continue to serve prison time for John Lennon's murder, parole board says Fearing he may commit more crimes, a three-person Parole Board panel announced Friday it has denied Chapman’s eighth bid for release. He won’t be eligible for parole again for another two years. The 59-year-old is serving a 20-year to life sentence at upstate Wende Correctional Facility after gunning down the former Beatle in 1980 as Lennon returned home from a late night recording session with wife Yoko Ono.John Lennon's killer will have to let it be in prison for at least two more...

Henry Rollins slams Robin Williams for committing suicide: 'How in the heck could you possibly do that to your children?' The hardcore rocker and spoken word artist doesn't mince his words when it comes to Williams' Aug. 11 suicide, suggesting that the 40,000 people who commit suicide each year in this country 'are 40,000 people who blew it.'Hardcore rocker Henry Rollins is being branded as a punk for criticizing Robin Williams in his weekly newspaper column. The former Black Flag frontman and self-proclaimed Williams fan slammed the late comic actor for committing suicide and "traumatizing" his three children in the...

I had been on the ground helping Al Jazeera America** cover the protests and unrest in Ferguson, Mo., since this all started last week. After what I saw last night, I will not be returning. The behavior and number of journalists there is so appalling, that I cannot in good conscience continue to be a part of the spectacle. **A clarification edit: I am not a full-time employee of any Al Jazeera branch or network. I am a freelance journalist who contributes to several media platforms. Things I’ve seen: -Cameramen yelling at residents in public meetings for standing in way...

More/best of the blogosphere's outer-right-wingtip this week at Reaganite Republican

In its updated 1,222-page “Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, Third Edition” released yesterday, the US Copyright Office took the side of Wikimedia in their argument with nature photographer David Slater when the office wrote that they cannot register works by monkeys.

Only the courts can judge Michael Brown’s killer – but this is the system that let George Zimmerman walk free.Just outside a mall in Ferguson, Missouri, shortly after 10 o’clock on Wednesday, a black man in his 30s was stopped and frisked by around eight white policemen. As he gingerly emptied his pockets, careful not to move too quickly, he yelled at them. It was a soliloquy of pure rage; a fluent, apparently unstoppable oration against not just the men who had apprehended him but the system they represented. “Yes I’m angry,” he shouted. “Four hundred years we been here....

As morality wanes in modern America, so too does clear thinking on the sensational issues of the day that distract us from what is truly important in the lives of a free people. I'm seriously concerned for my country when my fellow conservatives begin to jump the tracks whenever the police clash with evil individuals or the rampaging hordes that often follow. We should all be concerned about the loss of our freedoms, our liberties, the disregard for our Constitution by the elected, the rise of the police state, the lack of due process of citizens and the favoritism of...

Everything from streets to a parasitic hairworm have been named in honor of President Obama, but the effort to immortalize him is causing a backlash in one New Jersey town, .... ...Mount Obama on the island of Antigua; a Barack Obama petrol station in Ireland; and a parasitic hairworm, “paragordius obamai,” an all-female species that is able to reproduce without a male.

Elton John says he has an in with Jesus, and that El Cristo said homosexuality is alright. Hmmmmm, maybe he needs a better perscription for those glasses. See why Zo thinks Elton's crazy in this ZoNation.

Florida Judge Deals a Blow to Democrats on Districting By LIZETTE ALVAREZ AUG. 22, 2014 MIAMI — In a blow to Florida Democrats, a state judge on Friday approved a slightly modified congressional map drawn by the Republican-dominated Legislature and decided that the 2014 election could proceed under the old map, which he had ruled unconstitutional. Two days after a sharply partisan hearing on the new map, Terry P. Lewis, a state judge in Leon County, concluded that the rejiggered boundaries for seven districts, while not perfect, “sufficiently” addressed his constitutional concerns. A coalition of Democratic-leaning voter rights groups had...

Ferguson, Mo. "I JUST SAW SOMEONE DIE OMFG,” wrote Emanuel Freeman, a teenage rap aficionado who lives in the Canfield Green housing project in Ferguson, Missouri. It was about noon on Saturday, August 9, when Michael Brown, a hulking 18-year-old recently graduated from a failing high school and 10 minutes removed from committing a strong-arm robbery, was shot dead by Ferguson policeman Darren Wilson in the street outside Freeman’s window. Freeman appears not to have seen the fusillade that killed Brown, and no uncontested account of it has emerged. But we can see from the tweets Freeman posted in the...

China seizes huge cache of illegal weapons including 10,500 guns and 120,000 knives and SWORDS Follows 4-month probe leading agents deep into China's criminal underworld Haul includes sniper rifles, machine guns, crossbows and samurai swords 15 people were arrested on suspicion of making and distributing arms Official says it was a family-run firm that 'gave business cards all over China'

Two days before Mosul fell to the Islamic insurgent group Isis (the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), Iraqi commanders stood eyeballing its most trusted messenger. The man, known within the extremist group as Abu Hajjar, had finally cracked after a fortnight of interrogation and given up the head of Isis's military council. "He said to us, 'you don't realise what you have done'," an intelligence official recalled. "Then he said: 'Mosul will be an inferno this week'.' Several hours later, the man he had served as a courier and been attempting to protect, Abdulrahman al-Bilawi, lay dead in...

Gainesville police said they arrested two men and continue to search for two more after the men threw rocks off an interstate overpass and struck two vehicles. One of the two victims spoke exclusively with Channel 2 Action News and said the rock's impact felt like an explosion. "It was like a bomb went off," said John Chumley. "It made the van rock, and then all of a sudden, the window just blew out against me." Chumley said he had finished making a delivery and was driving south on Interstate 985 around 1:30 Tuesday morning when he thought he noticed...

Over the past two weeks, Americans have been transfixed and horrified by the surreal images of police donning camouflage and gas masks and pointing sniper rifles at unarmed demonstrators in Ferguson, Mo. Why have police departments become so enamored with tools more associated with war than with walking the beat? One answer is receiving precious little attention: America’s gun culture. America is a nation awash in firearms. It’s simply impossible to talk incisively about what’s happening in Ferguson without talking about guns and the ease with which ordinary citizens and criminals can get access to them. Police today are much...