https://freerepublic.com/tag/by:m203m4/ en-us Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:30:11 GMT Focus Forum 15 https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2348122/posts Simple place for a simple man By Ann Coppola, News Reporter Published: 11/05/2007 The nondescript setting that is Point Lookout Cemetery seems fitting for those who rest here. Austere columns support a wired arch above its entrance that holds the word “cemetery” in large white letters. They match the stark, cross-shaped grave markers, which tell nothing of those buried beneath them. Perhaps there is no story to be told for the dead here, but for Louisiana State Penitentiary inmates this facility's cemetery still serves as a symbol of dignity. Of Angola’s 5,000 inmates, 90 percent are expected to die in... Corrections.com https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2348122/posts#comment Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:30:11 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2296628/posts Editorial The Moon landing was not the only world-changing event in the summer of '69. An international, cross-disciplinary survey by Nature on page 314 reveals just how powerfully the Apollo programme motivated young people to become scientists 40 years ago — a fact today's space scientists ignore at their peril (see pages 325 and 327). Yet other events in the summer of 1969 would lead to a far deeper empowerment of scientists — and, indeed, many others. Even as Apollo 11 was putting the first humans on the Moon, Ken Thompson at AT&T's Bell Labs was working to get Space... Nature Magazine https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2296628/posts#comment Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:49:21 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2268884/posts Defeating the Cuckoo Brood parasite-host interactions show ongoing antagonistic coevolution. What mediates rapid behavioral changes that do not reflect genetic change? Davies and Welbergen show that reed warblers learn from their neighbors to behave aggressively toward models of the parasitic common cuckoo. Furthermore, reed warblers seem to be predisposed to learn to respond to cuckoos as enemies: Hosts that witnessed neighbors mobbing a harmless parrot model did not increase their aggression toward a cuckoo model. Thus, birds have templates for threats, and relevant antithreat behaviors can be turned on or off depending on social experience. Science Magazine https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2268884/posts#comment Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:21:42 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2264677/posts Research Highlights Nature 459, 618 (4 June 2009) | doi:10.1038/459618a; Published online 3 June 2009 Animal behaviour: Pretty please Many young animals beg for food from their elders. But, eventually, the pleading stops or the charity dries up. Joah Madden, at the University of Cambridge, UK, and his team looked to find the biological triggers that put an end to begging behaviour by studying free-ranging meerkats (Suricata suricatta) of the Kalahari Desert in South Africa over an 18-month period. The group analysed the begging calls of meerkat pups aged between 40 and 60 days — the peak of their begging... Nature Magazine https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2264677/posts#comment Thu, 4 Jun 2009 15:46:12 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2259049/posts Science 22 May 2009: Vol. 324. no. 5930, pp. 1051 - 1055 DOI: 10.1126/science.1171541 Fabricating Genetically Engineered High-Power Lithium-Ion Batteries Using Multiple Virus Genes Yun Jung Lee,1,* Hyunjung Yi,1,* Woo-Jae Kim,2 Kisuk Kang,3,4 Dong Soo Yun,1 Michael S. Strano,2 Gerbrand Ceder,1 Angela M. Belcher1,5,$ ABSTRACT Development of materials that deliver more energy at high rates is important for high-power applications, including portable electronic devices and hybrid electric vehicles [obligatory green reference]. For lithium-ion (Li+) batteries, reducing material dimensions can boost Li+ ion and electron transfer in nanostructured electrodes. By manipulating two genes, we equipped viruses with peptide groups having affinity... Science Magazine https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2259049/posts#comment Wed, 27 May 2009 14:53:58 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2254170/posts The European Parliament has reaffirmed its legislative value by reversing the potentially disruptive restrictions in the draft directive for protecting laboratory animals. Raise a glass to the elected members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Without their intervention last week, the European Union (EU) directive on the protection of laboratory animals would have continued its tortured path through legislative procedures in a form that was thoroughly toxic to biomedical research. The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, began working on the directive back in 2002.The draft that finally emerged last November was singularly uninformed. It should have balanced the undisputed duty... Nature https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2254170/posts#comment Tue, 19 May 2009 20:50:33 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2232392/posts WITH unemployment rising and the financial system in shambles, it’s hard not to feel negative about the economy right now. The answer to our problems, however, could well be more negativity. But I’m not talking about attitude. I‘m talking about numbers. ...[[snip]]... So why shouldn’t the Fed just keep cutting interest rates? Why not lower the target interest rate to, say, negative 3 percent? At that interest rate, you could borrow and spend $100 and repay $97 next year. This opportunity would surely generate more borrowing and aggregate demand. ...[[snip]]... If all of this seems too outlandish, there is a... NYT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2232392/posts#comment Sat, 18 Apr 2009 20:31:27 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2161034/posts As central banks and governments rush from one extreme stimulus intervention to another, mostly to cheers and applause from the professional classes, there's nothing the rest of us can do except hope that, this time, they all know what they are doing. Overshadowing events is likely the realization that the very people who are now supposedly digging us out of this hole -- mainly central bankers and politicians -- are the very people who dug us into the hole in the first place. Even more disconcerting, they didn't know two or three years ago that they were creating the recessionary... The Financial Post https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2161034/posts#comment Thu, 8 Jan 2009 18:14:43 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2117961/posts The 2008 election campaigns are in full force in North Carolina. The airwaves abound with advertisements for President, Governor, United States Senate, and various other state offices. Amidst all of the media attention devoted to these important executive and legislative positions, it is easy to forget about the third branch in our state democratic system—the judiciary. Unlike their federal counterparts on the United States Supreme Court, who are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, North Carolina Supreme Court Justices are elected. On November 4, 2008, North Carolina voters will elect one Justice to an eight year term... The Federalist Society https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2117961/posts#comment Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:49:56 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2027255/posts Every few weeks, TIME Magazine sends me another offer to subscribe to their communist garbage. See, I received a gift membership from a relative for Christmas a few years ago and did not renew (duh). These guys do not relent. In the envelope is the offer letter, a glossy bookmark, and a sheet describing my "free" gift if I subscribe (the same piece of garbage alarm/radio which I received with my gift membership). Oh, and a postage-paid return envelope. I just tossed them all until I saw this cover one day while at the grocery store: I have a feeling... Free Republic Special https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2027255/posts#comment Fri, 6 Jun 2008 19:33:43 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2004871/posts What would change if the US Constitution consisted of ONLY: Article I, Section 8, clause 18 (the necessary and proper clause) And: Article I, Section 8, c 1-3 (the commerce clause) The "Bill of Rights" could be replaced by The "Bill of Recommendations (subject to the whims of the Executive, Congress, and the Judiciary)". The First Amendment is already just taken as a basic recommendation, to be modified when convenient; same goes for the Second Amendment. The Ninth is toilet paper. The Tenth is a complete fiction, it may as well not even be there. So, what would change? I'm... https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2004871/posts#comment Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:04:18 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1983109/posts Embracing Earth Charter key to environmental salvation Author and U of A professor Colin Soskolne says humans need to smarten up. March 7, 2008 - Edmonton -- Human beings, laments Colin Soskolne, are a "seriously dumb species." Just what kind of defect drives us to destroy the very ecosystems that provide us with sustenance? Why do we turn away from mounting, irrefutable evidence that we are sabotaging our very existence?Such questions are asked in a new collection of essays, called Sustaining Life on Earth: Environmental and Human Health through Global Governance, edited by Soskolne, on the environment and human health."Our... Express News https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1983109/posts#comment Mon, 10 Mar 2008 04:36:26 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1948320/posts The results are in from the Iowa caucuses. On the Democratic side, it’s Obama (38%), Edwards (30%) and H. Clinton (29%), with Richardson and Biden in low single digits, and Dodd under 1% and withdrawing from the race. This was predicted as a close 3-way, and it was. It seems that, at least in lily-white Iowa, America’s First Black President proved a liability for America’s First Woman President, and may well help elect America’s actual first Black President (not to mention the first President from my college– and my college class no less)! Oprah, it seems, is every bit as... THE MODERATE VOICE https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1948320/posts#comment Fri, 4 Jan 2008 17:27:25 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1929184/posts Progressive Thanksgiving Prayer: Blessing of the Taxes By Propaganda Department 11/21/2007, 12:43 pm This year's secular Thanksgiving prayer was written by the People's Economist Professor Kurgman, PhD,PhD,PhD As much as I abhor Christianity, I occasionally attend progressive churches in my community - as long as the pastor expounds on socialism and its variants like environmental causes, and the rights of the oppressed masses of gays, wymyn, African-Americans, Palestinians, Hugo Chavez, and Hezbollah. Our local pastor, thank Lenin, rarely talks about anything else. He even asked me, a Marxist, to compose a prayer for this week's Thanksgiving sermon. Now, everybody knows... The People's Cube https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1929184/posts#comment Thu, 22 Nov 2007 03:42:24 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1848602/posts Disgusting situation in San Diego (illegal alien brothels, etc). Government tells citizens to basically ESAD. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al5Fwmowc8k email https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1848602/posts#comment Mon, 11 Jun 2007 23:42:50 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1834195/posts Liberty vs. Totalitarianism, Clinton-Style Monitoring by I.D. and Database Two of the principal mechanisms by which the rulers of 20th century police states maintained their control over their people were the file and the internal passport. These governments kept a cumulative file (called the dangan in Communist China) on every individual's performance and attitudes from school years through adult employment. Citizens carried an internal passport or "papers" that had to be presented to the authorities for permission to travel within the country, to take up residence in another city, or to apply for a new job. These two methods... Eagleforum.org https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1834195/posts#comment Wed, 16 May 2007 00:25:13 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1834176/posts LET'S BEGIN with the big lie—that Elian Gonzalez was separated from his father by his Cuban-American relatives living in Miami, and that father and son were reunited by Janet Reno's INS storm troopers. (What else can you call them, given their pre-dawn assault on a private home to snatch a child who was not a hostage, at gunpoint?) The entire premise of the Elian drama—that the Miami relatives have kept the boy from his father—is false. Elian was separated from his father not by Lazaro Gonzalez and company, but by Fidel Castro: the world's longest surviving and most sadistic dictator,... FrontPageMagazine.com https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1834176/posts#comment Tue, 15 May 2007 23:49:40 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1834170/posts President Clinton has waged an information war against America. Data accumulated inside the White House has taken prisoners, destroyed lives and provided valuable bounty for criminals. The war is designed to limit freedoms and control political opponents. Recent examples, such as campaigns against Kathleen Willey and Monica Lewinsky, are lurid tips of the White House iceberg. The most fertile ground for information exploited by Clinton is the data stored inside law enforcement computers such as the FBI. The FBI's NCIC system (National Criminal Information Center) is a network of computers erected by all the states that is tied to a... WND https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1834170/posts#comment Tue, 15 May 2007 23:43:48 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1821710/posts This is addressed to conservatives - if, in the last few months, you have used the phrase "because he is the only one who can win against Hillary" (some "victory"...), or some variation, don't bother reading this, it will not do you any good. You and your ilk, by helping engineer a putrid path of least resistance for the lumbering political bureaucracy to follow, are responsible for the leftward drift of the American conservatism movement, and will be as long as it is aligned with the Republican party. Go advertise the latest poll. Forward: (tone) There is a whiff of... Gedanken Experiment https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1821710/posts#comment Sun, 22 Apr 2007 21:04:18 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1817437/posts By Propaganda Department 4/12/2007, 2:17 pm Inspired by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's independent diplomatic trip to Syria, Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court David H. Souter suggested Tuesday that he may also take independent diplomatic trips to the remainder of the "Axis of Evil" countries, and deliver his own message to Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il. Justice Souter plans on his message to be "unique", "inspiring" and a "media-frenzy" which will completely muddle any previous messages sent from President Bush and Speaker Pelosi. "If there's no longer one branch of government that shapes our foreign relations," Souter told... The People's Cube https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1817437/posts#comment Sat, 14 Apr 2007 21:12:22 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1816830/posts We share common cause with the Islamist terrorists: Far from being unreasonable fanatics, the terrorists fight for the same things we do. We have a common enemy. Ian Buruma, writing in the Financial Times, reveals that “suicide bombers and jihadis” are by their very nature unreasonable. “There is nothing to negotiate with people who wish to kill as many infidels as they can to establish a divine realm of the faithful,” he instructs us. They see “mass murder as an existential act,” he adds. What source is Buruma drawing on to make these extravagant conclusions? I have been paying... The Republic https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1816830/posts#comment Fri, 13 Apr 2007 16:14:24 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1804700/posts Liberals furious at Harper's Taliban accusation Last Updated: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 | 7:12 PM ET CBC News Prime Minister Stephen Harper went into attack mode in the House of Commons on Wednesday, accusing the Liberals of caring more about Taliban prisoners than Canadian troops. Prime Minister Stephen Harper leaped to the defence of Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor during question period in the House of Commons on Wednesday.(Tom Hanson/Canadian Press) The attack came during Question Period, as the Liberals called for the resignation of Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor over the erroneous information he provided to the government two weeks ago.... CBC https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1804700/posts#comment Thu, 22 Mar 2007 02:13:56 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1722687/posts I'm not a legal scholar, be gentle. :) Pocket veto - The Constitution grants the President 10 days to review a measure passed by the Congress. If the President has not signed the bill after 10 days, it becomes law without his signature. However, if Congress adjourns during the 10-day period, the bill does not become law. MCA passed September 28th, 2006 Congress ADJOURNS SEPTEMBER 29TH, 2006 Bill signed Tuesday, October 17th, 2006 . So...my question is, why is this scenario not a problem? Thanks in advance for pointing out what is likely the obvious. https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1722687/posts#comment Fri, 20 Oct 2006 03:17:37 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1622335/posts An 18-year-old Singaporean student committed suicide last month because he was convinced his penis was too small, a report said on Wednesday. State Coroner Tan Boon Heng said the case highlighted the importance of sex education in schools and recommended the details be forwarded to the education ministry, the Straits Times reported. The teenager, who was not named, jumped from a building on March 3. A suicide note explained why, an investigation to determine the cause of death said. "He said it was not due to the stress of his examination, but it was more about his physical development... He... Hindustan Times https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1622335/posts#comment Thu, 27 Apr 2006 06:46:31 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1606109/posts Police in Charleston say a naked man exposed himself to his neighbor, then later attacked officers with nunchucks. Police say 49-year-old Rudolph Claude Smith went next door to his neighbor's house to borrow some oil for a workout. While he was in the neighbor's home, police say Smith took off his clothes and asked the neighbor to "oil him up." According to a police report, Smith attacked officers with nunchucks when they came to his home to make an arrest. They also say the oil made it hard for them to get a good grip on him. He's now in... wusatv9 https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1606109/posts#comment Thu, 30 Mar 2006 15:18:59 GMT