Free Republic

For most of the past century, the United States was the pre-eminent nation in science and technology. The evidence for that is beyond dispute: Since 1901, American researchers have won more Nobel prizes in medicine, chemistry, and physics than any other nation. Given our history of discovery, innovation, and success, it is not surprising that across the political landscape Americans consider the funding of scientific research to be both a source of pride and a worthy investment. Nevertheless, in his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned that the pursuit of government grants would have a corrupting influence on...

To get ahead of any federal guidelines allowing states to re-open their economy, Governor Gavin Newsom is outlining the terms and conditions for California. Please remember the key words that all totalitarian minds use in their language. When you see the code-words: “challenge“, “opportunity“, “partner” or “support“, pay extra attention..... California will not lift their lock-down orders until the government has: (1) The ability to monitor and protect our communities through testing, contact tracing, isolating, and supporting those who are positive or exposed. Do we have the ability to identify contacts of those who are positive to reduce further transmission?...

PGA Tour officials are expected to announce this week their intention to resume the tour season, halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, on June 11-14 at the Charles Schwab Challenge, multiple sources have told Golf Digest. It’s also expected that fans will not be allowed to attend that first tournament at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth.

New Jersey will likely be under strict social-distancing orders to fight the spread of the coronavirus for the next six weeks before restrictions could begin to be pulled back and some semblance of normalcy returns to day-to-day living, Gov. Phil Murphy said Tuesday evening. Think more like June or July, not May, Murphy said. “I personally think in the warmer weather, we could begin to find our footing, assuming again that we’ve got the health care infrastructure, especially broad-scale testing, that we’re going to need to give us that confidence,” the governor said during an appearance on MSNBC. “I think...

Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson says he is aiming to release a status report on his investigation into Hunter Biden’s work for Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings “sometime this summer,” saying that the coronavirus pandemic “hampered” the probe. “We’re in the process of writing different sections of the report that I’d like to make public sometime this summer,” Johnson (R-Wis.) told Politico in an interview Monday. “But obviously, [the coronavirus] has not been helpful and hampered our efforts,” he added. The Wisconsin Republican told the outlet that committee staffers have been going through documents provided by the State Department...

U.S. Attorney General William Barr has issued a statement after Greenville police issued tickets to church members who had gathered in their cars to worship during a COVID-19 shelter-in-place order. … Religion and religious worship continue to be central to the lives of millions of Americans. This is true more so than ever during this difficult time. The pandemic has changed the ways Americans live their lives. Religious communities have rallied to the critical need to protect the community from the spread of this disease by making services available online and in ways that otherwise comply with social distancing guidelines....

<p>LITTLE ROCK (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday blocked Arkansas’ order preventing the state’s only surgical abortion clinic from performing the procedure during the coronavirus pandemic.</p> <p>The decision came as health officials announced that at least 1,498 people in the state have been infected with the coronavirus, an increase over the 1,410 reported a day earlier. Two more people died because of the virus, bringing the state’s death toll to 32.</p>

UAB infectious disease doctor and recovering COVID-19 patient Dr. Michael Saag said he felt “a little bit unhappy with myself,” after trying a largely untested treatment for the new coronavirus during his illness.

Being a government planner in a free society should be almost as unrewarding aa being a freethinker in a fascist state. The major difference, any bureaucrat can tell you, is that while a free society may thwart your plans, lt allows you to keep your job and your life. The resulting combination of frustration and security gives government planners an attitude of desperate benevolence toward the people they serve. They want to. tell us how to live and, by heaven, we'd better listen if we know what's good for us. Unfortunately, their compulsion to make us listen often turns planners...

My husband was playing loud, raucous Rock Music tonight, and I asked him to play something peaceful. He came up with this (I especially liked the tribute -?- to American Western Movies): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXuUPcfloQsThe MozART group says this in their 'about' blurb on YouTube: "We exist despite the sober formality of great concert halls, despite the boredom of classical musicians' life, despite fanatic lovers of classical music, despite fans of rock, rap or pop who are afraid of classical music. We treat our Muse with a humorous irony and we're sure, she will have nothing against it!" -MozART group

As a designer of Orthodox churches, I am frequently asked whether a proposed church building will have good acoustics. Acoustics is a complex matter that cannot always be catagorized as simply “good” or “bad”. In order to shed some light on this topic, I am going to discuss the various acoustical characteristics encountered in churches, the architectural choices that cause them, and their benefits and drawbacks from the standpoint of Orthodox liturgy. Reverberation TimeThe most basic acoustical quality is that of reverberation. This refers to the length of time that sound lingers in a space before dying out. It is...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should immediately revisit restrictions on mifepristone, a drug used in medication abortion, so that patients do not need to travel during the coronavirus outbreak, three female Democratic senators said on Tuesday. Under current regulations, patients seeking medication abortion ― a protocol that involves taking two drugs ― must pick up the medicines in person at an abortion clinic, even though the pills may be swallowed at home. That’s because mifepristone, the first of the two drugs used to terminate a pregnancy, is subject to a special set of FDA restrictions called Risk Evaluation and...

Amy Schumer has been forced to change her infant son’s name as she thought it sounded like “genital,” she revealed. The 38-year-old comic gave birth to son Gene on May 5 last year. Schumer and her husband, Chris Fischer, 40, gave him the middle name Attell in honor of fellow comic and close friend Dave Attell. However, speaking on her podcast “3 Girls, 1 Keith,” Schumer told her co-hosts Rachel Feinstein, Bridget Everett and Keith Robinson: “Do you guys know that Gene, our baby’s name, is officially changed? It’s now Gene David Fischer. It was Gene Attell Fischer, but we...

Minsk, April 13, Interfax - Byelorussian President Alexander Lukashenko has said that he will not prohibit Byelorussians to do anything on Easter and will attend the church service. "Those who want will pray and go to church. I will be in church. This is my tradition. I rarely go but I am always in church on Christmas and Easter. I usually travel to the regions and visit those small churches," Lukashenko said as quoted by BelTA state news agency. "I want to stress once more: we are not closing the road to church to anyone. That is my strong demand....

The Strategic National Stockpile has sent out 19.1 million tablets of hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug that some doctors have prescribed to Covid-19 patients, a spokesperson for the Federal Emergency Management Agency confirmed. The tablets, sent out in two shipments, are heading to cities around the country. About 10.1 million are going to the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, as well as Washington, D.C.; Baton Rouge; St. Louis; Philadelphia; Baltimore; Miami; Milwaukee; Indianapolis; Houston and Pittsburgh. Another shipment, of 9 million tablets, is headed for Detroit, New Orleans, New York City and Chicago, according to the spokesperson. Those last four...

Suits challenging COVID-19 orders that ban group church services are proliferating. Sacramento Bee reported yesterday: A group of Inland Empire pastors is suing California Gov. Gavin Newsom in federal court, alleging that his administration is “criminalizing the free exercise of religion” with stay-at-home directives that have prevented people from attending church services.... One of the plaintiffs is Dean Moffatt, a Riverside County pastor who was fined $1,000 for holding a Palm Sunday church service, according to the complaint filed. KRQE News reported yesterday: An Albuquerque [New Mexico] megachurch is now suing the state claiming the governor violated the first amendment...

If you’re a regular reader of FiveThirtyEight, you’re probably used to looking at data in sports — where basically everything that happens on a basketball court or a baseball diamond is recorded — or in electoral politics, when polls (in theory, anyway) survey a random sample of the population. COVID-19 statistics, especially the number of reported cases, are not at all like that. The data, at best, is highly incomplete, and often the tip of the iceberg for much larger problems. And data on tests and the number of reported cases is highly nonrandom.... if you’re not accounting for testing...

In less than a month, Abbott Laboratories has shipped 566,000 of its highly touted “rapid” molecular tests for the Coronavirus strain COVID-19 to all 50 U.S. states. The effort to get the ID NOW COVID-19 test to doctor’s offices, urgent care centers and temporary testing sites like drive-thru parking lot locations is a snapshot into the massive diagnostic effort under way in the U.S. Abbott’s ID NOW COVID-19 test can deliver “positive results in as little as five minutes and negative results in 13 minutes.” The test, hailed by Donald Trump from the White House and praised by commercial companies...

Washington D.C., Apr 13, 2020 / 10:00 am (CNA).- The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will hear oral arguments by phone next month. Justices will hear arguments from lawyers remotely across six dates in the first two weeks of May in an effort to keep the business of the court moving during the coronavirus outbreak. A statement from the Supreme Court, released April 13, said that ten cases would be assigned dates in the first two weeks of May. "The Court will hear oral arguments by telephone conference on May 4, 5, 6, 11, 12 and 13," the...

After logging over 1,000 COVID-19 deaths, Sweden has faced a rash of criticism for having perhaps the least restrictive rules in the world regarding social distancing, as restaurants and bars and some schools remain open while staying at home is urged but not mandated.  But don’t let that fool you because Sweden is still a different place from what it used to be, said Johan Norberg, an economics writer who lives in Stockholm and most recently the author of the award-winning book “Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future.” “Most people stay at home, don’t travel, rarely go...