Free Republic

I always SEARCH before I post. I search BOTH TITLES if there are two. There are numerous times that a search does not show an article has posted in a thread and it has. Just a FYI for all ya'll mods out there in moderator land that get snarky. MOVING ON and TO CHANGE THE SUBJECT Where's Obama? Golfing?

"Washington, right now, is broken," said Vice President Biden in February. "I've never seen it this dysfunctional." Back then, Biden was just one of many who complained that partisan rancor and gamesmanship had brought the functioning of the federal government virtually to a halt, making it impossible for the president and lawmakers to get anything done. "Washington is broken" became the political world's conventional wisdom. Fast-forward to Dec. 22. Celebrating the passage of a new law allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military, President Obama said the event marked "the culmination of two of the most productive years in...

In the last month or so, an echo chamber of insults has engulfed California. An online opinion editor for the Wall Street Journal even called California "the Lindsay Lohan of states," describing our state as having squandered its promise. Critics have suggested the state will default on its debt payments, that it is addicted to spending and that it has a hostile business climate. The criticism is long on inflammatory rhetoric, but it lacks any evidentiary foundation. First, let's look at the default threat. California has never failed to make its bond payments on time and in full, not even...

SMobile System's Global Threat Center (http://threatcenter.smobilesystems.com/) has performed an in-depth analysis of over 48,000 applications currently available on the Android market and discovered the following threats: 20 percent of applications in the Android market grant a third party application access to private or sensitive information that an attacker could use for malicious purposes, such as Identity Theft, mobile banking fraud and corporate espionage5 percent of applications have the ability to place a call to any number, without requiring user intervention Dozens of applications have the identical type of access to sensitive information as known spyware 2 percent of market submissions...

"It is shockingly easy to gain access to an AT&T customer's voicemail using caller ID spoofing techniques. What's worse is that AT&T knows about it. On your Android phone, download one of the two caller ID spoofing programs. Input the number of your target as the destination number and then enter the same number as the spoofed caller ID. Then connect your call. If the target has not added a voicemail password (the default is no password), you will be dropped into a random menu of their voicemail and eventually can drill up or down to get what you want....

  No. 24: End income tax for seniors making less than $50,000 "Will eliminate all income taxation of seniors making less than $50,000 per year. This will eliminate taxes for 7 million seniors -- saving them an average of $1,400 a year-- and will also mean that 27 million seniors will not need to file an income tax return at all.">>More No. 30: End no-bid contracts above $25,000 "Will ensure that federal contracts over $25,000 are competitively bid.">>More No. 86: Direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to conduct a comprehensive study of federal cancer initiatives "As president, Barack...

TO THE CONGRESS: The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775 - you have had 234 years to get it right; it is broke. Social Security was established in 1935 - you have had 74 years to get it right; it is broke. Fannie Mae was established in 1938 - you have had 71 years to get it right; it is broke. The "War on Poverty" started in 1964 - you have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor"; it hasn't worked and our entire country...

THE U.S. DOLLAR INDEX, which tracks the dollar against other major currencies, fell below its important June low of 78.33 late last week. On Monday morning, it was trading at an 11-month low. The bear trend from March continues with no meaningful support in sight. Roughly two years ago, when the dollar was in its previous bear market run, the dollar index had moved under a multi-decade support level at 80 (see Chart 1).

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is resting her broken ankle

Choose any number, then subtract both the first and second digits from your number.Example: 25-2-5=18...

It's tempting right now to say President Bush will go down as one of the worst presidents ever to dis-grace the White House. But is that fair, or even accurate? Historian renderings of a legacy are often at odds with fluctuating public opinion polls that gauge the heat of the moment. Take Truman. The man had a 22 percent approval rating toward the end of his presidency--due in large part to a highly unpopular Korean War--yet he's among the most popular presidents in history. I'm going to play the devil's advocate and argue that it is at least in the...

The wounds were still fresh from his damaging defeat in the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 5 when Mitt Romney was looking for a way to regain momentum heading into the New Hampshire primary. On that cold morning at a town hall meeting in Derry, New Hampshire, Romney stood beside an illuminated sign that unveiled his retooled message: "Washington Is Broken." “We face extraordinarily challenges that we have heard the politicians talk about for decades without getting anything done,” Romney said on that day. “And it is finally time to have somebody go to Washington who is not a lifelong politician...

John McCain's message machine shifted gears today -- after a week or so of offbeat efforts to annoy and exasperate Barack Obama, the Republican's campaign launched a new bid to distance himself from the titular head of his own party. A 60-second McCain television ad airing in several of this year's key battleground states seeks to both remind voters of the "maverick" image that gained him national prominence and undercut arguments that he's a President Bush clone. Indeed, the spot's third sentence offers this starkly negative assessment of the incumbent's second term: "We’re worse off than we were four years...

ARLINGTON, VA -- U.S. Senator John McCain's presidential campaign today released its latest television ad, entitled "Broken." The ad highlights John McCain's record of taking on the special interests in Washington. The ad will air in key states. VIEW THE AD HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylJkmMR8Fek Script For "Broken" (TV :60) ANNCR: Washington's broken. John McCain knows it. We're worse off than we were four years ago. Only McCain has taken on big tobacco, drug companies, fought corruption in both parties. He'll reform Wall Street, battle Big Oil, make America prosper again. He's the original maverick. One is ready to lead -- McCain....

OZARK, Mo. -- A family wants answers about what happened to their son that left him hospitalized. Early Saturday morning, police found Mace Hutchinson, 16, underneath the Highway F overpass over U.S. 65. Mace ended up in intensive care at a hospital. His parents believe the actions of Ozark police officers contributed to his injuries and slowed doctors’ abilities to speed his recovery. “We called the police. My wife was afraid he was going to get ran over or hit,” said witness Doug Messersmith. Messersmith and his wife were the last known people to see 16-year-old boy walking, shortly before...

Erectile Dysfunction May Signal A Broken Heart ScienceDaily (May 20, 2008) — Erectile dysfunction is always a matter of the heart, but new research shows that more than romance is at stake. Two new studies of men with type 2 diabetes found that erectile dysfunction (ED) was a powerful early warning sign for serious heart disease, including heart attack and death. One of the studies also showed that cholesterol-lowering medications could cut the risk of heart problems by about one-third--and suggested that Viagra and other compounds in the same drug family might offer similar protection. The research, which was published...

Out of frustration with the current primary system several observers and magazines have suggested a single nationwide primary. This would cause as many problems as it fixes, including making money a huge determining factor and (therefore) giving even more power to the MSM to pick our candidates. Several of these commentators have compounded the bad idea of a All-State Primary with the worse suggestion that the Congress mandate it. The proposed plan is not great for several reasons. First off is Constitutionality. The Republican party is not a branch of the US Government which the Congress can legislate rules for!...

A pair of German physicists claim to have broken the speed of light - an achievement that would undermine our entire understanding of space and time. According to Einstein's special theory of relativity, it would require an infinite amount of energy to propel an object at more than 186,000 miles per second. However, Dr Gunter Nimtz and Dr Alfons Stahlhofen, of the University of Koblenz, say they may have breached a key tenet of that theory. The pair say they have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons - energetic packets of light - travelled "instantaneously" between a pair of...

KIRKLAND, Wash. - Shaun Alexander might still have a broken foot, something he doesn't want confirmed just yet. The Seattle Seahawks' star running back said Monday his left foot, broken for the final four months of last season, may still be cracked as he begins the 2007 preseason. The 2005 NFL MVP doesn't want to know for sure until after his team's veteran minicamp ends Thursday. RB Alexander tracks a pass in Seahawks minicamp. He later talks about being a new dad, the upcoming season and his injured foot.

This morning the Supreme Court came down with two decisions about patent law that both take small, but extremely important, steps towards reigning in some of the worst abuses of the patent system. In both cases, it's disagreed with the position taken by the Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit (CAFC). This isn't a huge surprise, as many observers figured that the Supreme Court's recent interest in all sorts of patent cases meant that the justices weren't at all happy with the way CAFC was moving. This is a good thing, as the past twenty-five years or so of CAFC...