Free Republic

Early this morning the Martin Place siege ended with the death of the lone gunman and tragically, the loss of two hostages – innocent Australians caught up in the horror of yesterday. Five other people – four hostages and a New South Wales police officer – have been injured. State and Commonwealth agencies are investigating. Understandably, there is lot of speculation but it will take time to clarify exactly what happened in Martin Place and why. What we do know is that the perpetrator was well known to State and Commonwealth authorities. He had a long history of violent crime,...

On a third-and-5 early in the fourth quarter, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson couldn't connect with rookie wide receiver Paul Richardson, but a roughing the passer penalty against 49ers linebacker Nick Moody bailed out Seattle. Instead of kicking a field goal to remain ahead by one score, the defending Super Bowl champions received a first down and scored a touchdown to go up 17-7 two plays later.

As we noted previously, counterparty risk concerns (and thus financial system fragility) are starting to rear their ugly heads. In the mid 2000s, it was massive one-way levered bets on "house prices will never go down again." When the cracks started to appear, the mark-to-market losses in derivatives led to forced liquidations and snowballed systemically. In the mid 2010s, it is massively levered one-way asymmetric bets on "commodity prices [oil] will never go down again." Meet WTI-structured-notes... the transmission mechanism for oil-price-shocks blowing up the financial system. Because nothing says exuberant ignorance like limited upside, unlimited downside OTC (illiquid) derivatives...

The late Richard John Neuhaus famously wrote of bioethicists: Thousands of medical ethicists and bioethicists, as they are called, professionally guide the unthinkable on its passage through the debatable on the way to becoming the justifiable until it is finally established as unexceptionable. In my over 20 years engaged in trying to push back against the bioethics movement, I have found that to be an absolutely accurate formula. Take, as one example, dehydrating the cognitively devastated to death–a slow and potentially agonizing death. That was once unthinkable, it became debatable in the 1980s, and is now unexceptional. Allowing infanticide has...

On Vatican II Q. Your Eminence, you grew up before the Second Vatican Council. How do you remember those times? A. I grew up in a very beautiful time in the Church, in which we were carefully instructed in the faith, both at home and in the Catholic school, especially with the Baltimore Catechism. I remember the great beauty of the Sacred Liturgy, even in our little farming town, with beautiful Masses. And then, I'm of course most grateful for my parents who gave me a very sound up-bringing in how to live as a Catholic. So they were beautiful...

. 2014-12-15 Message Alert Communicate this information to fellow Conservatives, Churches, Facebook contacts, Tea Party groups, and your Family, Friends and Neighbors. Free Republic's "National Day of Reckoning" protest against Obama's Illegal Amnesty in EVERY American City Saturday : 3 January 2015 : 9 AM to 1 PM Facebook Link: "Obama Amnesty National Protest : 2015-01-03" Planning Suggestions for your "National Day of Reckoning" protest against Obama's Illegal Amnesty - (Internet Link) Suggested Planning Tasks and Schedule Milestones for your Team 2014-12-06 : Saturday : Identify and Contact your Team Members 2014-12-13 : Saturday : Team Meeting to decide these...

A US judge Monday expressed doubt towards the government's e-book antitrust case against Apple, saying the tech giant was challenging "predatory" pricing from rival Amazon. The comments came as a federal appeals court panel heard arguments in the case, in which Apple was found to have colluded with publishers to raise e-book prices. Apple argues that its entry into the e-book market fostered competition because it challenged Amazon, which had a dominant share in e-books. Apple claims its entry spurred additional publishers to produce e-books, and that prices of e-books generally fell even though it concedes that some prices rose...

It will take some time to scrub anti-Semitism completely out of the substructure of Wellesley College. It’s stubborn stuff, like the admissions quotas on Jewish students during the 1940s, the outright hostility to Jewish scholars in the college’s religion department during the 1960s and ’70s, and the 1990s-era professor whose bigoted diatribes included false accusations against Jews for “monumental culpability” during the transatlantic African slave trade. Last month’s firings of Wellesley College’s Jewish chaplain and director of the Hillel student organization may well turn out — as the college contends — to be part of a broader consolidation effort aimed...

[O]pponents of exam extensions have declared that to grant these requests [to delay exams for "distressed" students] would be a disservice to the students. Law students, they argue, must learn how to engage critically with the law in the face of intense adversity. Drawing comparisons to events surrounding the Civil Rights Movement and other times of intense turmoil, these opponents portray today’s law students as coddled millennials using traumatic events as an excuse for their inability to focus on a three-hour exam. In essence, law students are being told to grow up and learn how to focus amidst stress and...

Former Spanish police officer - previously arrested for Nazi-themed protest - scaled the walls of the enclose where 3 lions mauled him, according to local media. Whether in an act of unknown protest, plain disregard for basic safety or a test of conviction in the lions' den, an alleged neo-Nazi activist sustained critical injuries from a lion attack at the Barcelona Zoo on Sunday after he jumped into the animals' enclosure, according to Spanish daily El País. According to eyewitness accounts, the 45-year-old former Spanish police officer donned full military garb when he deliberately scaled the walls of the feline...

Jennifer Waloway, a nurse practitioner who oversees six family planning clinics in northeastern Wisconsin, was opening the mail in August when she came upon a letter from the state. It asked NEWCAP Community Health Services, which runs the clinics, to please submit a check payable to the State of Wisconsin. The amount: $1,169,837.10. "I was a little in shock," Waloway said. The letter from the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Health Services said its audit showed that NEWCAP incorrectly had billed — and been paid — by the Medicaid and BadgerCare Plus programs for prescription drugs...

CAMBRIDGE (CBS) – The Andrew Peabody School in Cambridge snubbed Santa the day before the winter concert. Principal Jennifer Ford sent a letter home to parents on Thursday letting them know of the change. The letter said in part: “I am writing to you today to inform you of a change in our concert series this winter. Our First through Fourth grade concert as well as our Kindergarten concert will not include a visit from Santa Claus this year.” Robert Thompson has two kids in the school. He said the concert traditionally closed with Santa running through the aisle. He...

MOSCOW — With Russia scrambling to contain a currency crisis, the country’s central bank, in a surprise middle-of-the-night move, increased its key interest rate to 17 percent, from 10.5 percent. Aleksei L. Kudrin, a former Russian finance minister who is widely credited with having steered Russia through the 2008 financial crisis by convincing President Vladimir V. Putin to build up sovereign reserves, said that uneven policy making was adding to the erosion of confidence. “The fall of the ruble and the stock market is not only a reaction to lower oil prices and sanctions, but also distrust in the government’s...

n New Year’s Day 1915, two men flying a Turkish flag attacked a picnic train on the outskirts of Broken Hill. A gun battle later took place and both attackers were shot dead. Four other people were killed and seven wounded. Follow the re-enactment of this historic event. GEORGE NEGUS: G'day. Another week here on GNT. And tonight, a fascinating look back at some of the trickier characters lurking in our national past. Some of course will have other theories. But maybe our convict past itself could be one of the explanations for our love/hate relationship with our historical villains,...

The Senate on Monday approved President Barack Obama's nomination of Dr. Vivek Murthy to serve as U.S. surgeon general, despite opposition from Republicans and some Democrats over his support for gun control. Murthy, 37, a physician at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital and instructor at Harvard Medical School, won confirmation on a vote of 51-43. He's a co-founder of Doctors for America, a group that has pushed for affordable health care and supports Obama's health care law. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said most of Murthy's career has been spent as an activist focused on gun control and other political issues,...

...I re-registered as an Independent today. Bye Bye GOP-e 4-Ever!

Salon.com ✔ @Salon The right is coming for your birth control — they just don’t want you to know it yet http://slnm.us/btF70R8 via @kmcdonovgh RB @RBPundit Follow Not only is this idiotic piece based on a lie, the moron who wrote it couldn't even argue the lie convincingly. @Salon @kmcdonovgh 2:29 PM - 15 Dec 2014 ortly before the November elections, NARAL suggested that Cory Gardner would ban birth control in Colorado. As Salon demonstrates, such scare tactics haven’t subsided: It’s the lie that won’t die! Salon.com ✔ @Salon The right is coming for your birth control — they just...

In addition to major telecommunications firms aiming to influence the public debate on net neutrality, there’s the Ford Foundation, the second-largest private foundation in the world. “If you are a foundation for justice in the world, and you don’t understand that the Internet is going to be a major battleground in this century, and you’re not engaged in that fight and supporting people who are concerned about access and security, you’re going to be left out of one of the most important justice issues of the day,” Foundation President Darren Walker told the Council on Foreign Relations this summer. “And...

“You thought you'd sweep it under the rug! You thought there'd be no limelight!" Sharpton said. "We are going to keep the light on Michael Brown, on Eric Garner, on Tamir Rice, on all of these victims because the only way -- I'm sorry, I come out of the 'hood -- the only way you make roaches run, you got to cut the light on." Protesters chanted violent slogans: "What do we want? Dead cops!"

The rampage began around 4 a.m. at ex-wife Nicole Stone's Harleysville apartment, investigators said. Stone broke in through a glass door, firing multiple rounds and fleeing with their two children, the woman's neighbors said. He then went to two nearby communities, where her relatives lived, killed five other people and severely wounded another person before apparently holing up in a Pennsburg home, authorities said.