Free Republic

“We are the first generation that can end poverty and the last generation that can avoid the worst impacts of climate change.” UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, told this to a conference of 60 scientists and academicians, political leaders (including the Presidents of Italy and Ecuador), business experts and representatives of the world’s major religions, at a summit meeting in the Vatican on April 28. He addressed the high-powered gathering after “a fruitful and wide-ranging conversation” with Pope Francis, during which the pontiff confirmed that his encyclical on protecting the environment is finished and being translated, and expected to be published...

Trickle Down Economics versus Trickle Down Socialism Ronald Reagan’s economic plan saw GDP surge at a 3.5% clip – 4.9% after the recession. That’s a 32% bump. During the Obama years, thanks to his big government policies, the US economy has stalled. Today the quarterly GDP was announced. The GDP for the first quarter of 2015 braked more sharply than expected at only a .2% pace. The US economy has grown an anemic 9.6% during the Obama years (excluding today’s dismal number). Of course, Obama’s record on job growth is also much worse than President Reagan’s record. Net job growth...

you can see the best-ever images of Pluto, our solar system's most distant (dwarf) planet. The animation is made up of images taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft between April 12 and 18 from a distance of 69 to 64 million miles from Pluto. They capture one complete rotation of Pluto and its moon Charon... The images have already surpassed the Hubble's resolution, but there are plenty of features too subtle for the spacecraft to pick up. In fact, the images don't even show all of Pluto's known moons yet -- let alone any smaller ones we've yet to discover...

(Liveblogging as it happens)

Berlin (AFP) - German intelligence services spied on top French officials and the European Commission on behalf of the American spy agency NSA, according to an article to appear Thursday in Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency helped the National Security Agency (NSA) carry out "political espionage" by surveilling "top officials at the French Foreign Ministry, the Elysee Palace and European Commission" the German daily paper is to report.

Vietnamese foodie guide: Critic Brad A. Johnson dishes about the 25 best things to eat in Little Saigon The scent of Little Saigon hits me in the face. An intoxicating perfume of jackfruit and bananas and the vanilla-y scent of pandanus leaves wraps itself around me in a warm, tight embrace. It’s a sunny Friday afternoon, and the line to purchase something cold and sweet at Thach Che Hien Khanh in Garden Grove stretches out the front door and down the sidewalk, past a vendor of exotic fruits and knickknacks — chopsticks, paper lanterns, plastic Buddhas, various figurines of the...

A British exit from the European Union could cost the UK as much as €300bn (£215bn), or 14% of GDP, according to a German study. The report from two respected German institutes warns of far-reaching consequences for the whole region should next week’s UK general election pave the way for a referendum on EU membership, as promised by the Conservatives, and ultimately a British departure from the bloc. Even under the best-case scenario, where an independent UK has a trade agreement with the EU, the costs would outweigh the benefits, claims the study by the Bertelsmann Stiftung (foundation) and ifo...

Bell Helicopter announced today that it will lay off 1,100 employees. The Fort Worth-based helicopter company has a location on Pont Des Mouton Road in Lafayette, according to the company's website. The company did not release specifics on which locations will see layoffs, but the communications director did say in a news release that the reduction in workforce will apply to all areas of the business, both management and non-management, and covered and non-covered workers. In addition to its Pont Des Mouton location, Bell Helicopter broke ground in August last year on an 82,300-square-foot aircraft assembly center near the Lafayette...

“Shakespeare was writing for an all-male company,” said Ryan, who ran the company alongside co-artistic director Marco Barricelli in SCS’s first season. “He didn’t write a lot of women’s roles because he knew they would be played by boys anyway. But there’s no reason to think that he wouldn’t have (written more women’s roles) if he were, say, writing during the Restoration when women were on stage.” Ryan stressed that the new policy does not mean a casting free-for-all in which a character’s gender is entirely disregarded. In the new season, selected roles cast cross- gender include the warrior Banquo,...

Not holding back one bit. Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke says O is "quietly enjoying" what's going on in Baltimore because he's a 'promoter of division' and has 'benefitted politically' from 'dividing' people. Sheriff Clarke points out all the times President Obama has pitted one group of Americans against another. He also questions why Obama didn't come out and speak about the Baltimore riots earlier. He was interviewed here on the Mark Levin Show

It’s official: The Energy Department’s green energy loan program is expected to lose money despite media reports that such loans would net the government a profit. The Government Accountability Office says the DOE’s oft-touted $28 billion loan program will cost taxpayers $2.21 billion over the lifetime of the loans. Not only that, the costs to taxpayers for green loans has risen about $500 million as “the result of loan guarantee defaults” from companies like Solyndra and Abound Solar. The “credit subsidy cost of the loans and loan guarantees in its portfolio” is expected ”to be $2.21 billion, including $807 million...

In La Paz, El Salvador, a stray dog named Oso who lives around the Santa Maria Ostuma police station, saved all on-duty officers from a gang attack, when the dog fought off gang members forcing them to flee.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said Wednesday that President Obama has “inflamed racial tensions in this country” and that the Democrat has missed a prime opportunity to unify the nation. Speaking at a forum hosted by the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce at The National Press Club, Mr. Cruz, a contender for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, said the Obama administration has habitually divided the nation for political gain. “I think he has not used his role as president to bring us together. He has exacerbated racial misunderstandings, racial tensions,” Mr. Cruz said.

Guns and masculinity go together like cornflakes and milk. I see this constantly. I see it among scholars like James William Gibson (whose psycho-sexual analysis of guns and ammo I have recently highlighted), Jennifer Dawn Carlson and Angela Stroud (both of whom highlight the role of masculinity in shaping the understandings of those who carry guns), and Scott Melzer and Joan Burbick (both of whom highlights gun culture’s emphasis on “frontier masculinity”). I see it within gun culture in the form of photos and videos that circulate of bikini clad women holding and/or firing guns (so as not to advertise...

There are a lot of purchases you can make with the information on the front of a credit card. But ID thieves who have the card number, name, and expiration date will still hit a speedbump if they have to enter that (usually 3-digit) security code on the back of a victim’s card. Notice that we said “speedbump” and not “dead end,” because some scammers have figured out how to get this crucial info from their victims. According to our colleagues at Consumer Reports, the security code scam works by taking advantage of the near-constant news of data breaches that...

The Buccaneers front office can spin it in whatever manner it wishes but on Draft Eve the brain trust has to be less comfortable than grandpa at a One Direction concert. While you won't hear anything close to a "maybe" in his public presentation, Lovie Smith's tummy has to be flipping faster than a chef grilling fillets at Bern's.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said that President Obama and other Democrats would rather scare Hispanics into voting for Democrats instead of solving the nation’s immigration problems. “I think they are treating immigration as a political cudgel, where they want to use it to scare the Hispanic community,” the GOP presidential hopeful said Wednesday. “Their objective is to have the Hispanic community vote monolithically Democrat as, unfortunately, they have succeeded in scaring the African-American community to do that.” Cruz’s remarks came at a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce event in Washington. He did not speak at the Chamber’s summit last month, a...

Wednesday was Anggie Godoy's 14th day since eating her last meal: French fries covered with grilled meat, cheese and guacamole. She hasn't had anything to eat since then - just water. "There are days where it's good and there are days where it's bad," she said about her fast. But what keeps her going is knowing that she's fighting for something just as critical to her survival. The 19-year-old daughter of Guatemalan immigrants is among a group of women who are close to completing a 15-day fast in Los Angeles. They hoped to persuade city council members there to raise...

Attorneys representing people arrested during this week’s violence and looting are frustrated that suspects are being assigned bail they believe is exorbitant. Many of those charged can’t pay it, and may spend months in jail awaiting trial.

In the oral arguments presented yesterday in the Supreme Court on the question of whether the U.S. Constitution guarantees two people of the same sex the right to marry one another, Justice Samuel Alito asked whether—if two of the same sex have a right to marry—why not four people of opposite sexes. “Would there be any ground for denying them a license?” Alito asked. “Let's say they're all consenting adults, highly educated. They're all lawyers,” he said. Alito posed the question to Mary L. Bonauto, a lawyer who was presenting the court with arguments on behalf of clients seeking to...