Free Republic

A man stealing a coin collection in a Hilton Head Plantation home at noon Wednesday found himself running for his life after the homeowner shot at him and chased him out of the house. The unidentified man, who was armed with a large stick or club, broke into a house on Teal Lane while the residents were inside, according to a news release from the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office. The intruder entered through the unlocked front door and walked down the hall into a bedroom, where he started stealing a coin collection, according to the release. The owner confronted the...

On Monday, NewsBusters asked, “How do you know when an extraordinarily liberal politician is failing badly?” Tuesday’s answer is: When an extraordinarily liberal journalist like the Washington Post’s Richard Cohen not only notices, but is willing to write about it AND get his critique published. As if coordinated, Cohen followed Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman’s “The Limits of Charisma: Mr. President, Please Stay Off TV” with a well-timed smackdown of his own called “Time to Act Like a President": Sooner or later it is going to occur to Barack Obama that he is the president of the United States. As of...

A teenage burglary suspect remains hospitalized after he was shot Friday morning while breaking into a home in southeast Houston, authorities said. The owner of the home in the 8100 block of Gladstone was alone about 10:15 a.m. when he heard noises coming from the side of the house. After hearing the sound of breaking glass, the homeowner, 42, grabbed his pistol and went to investigate. He pulled back a bedroom curtain and was confronted by the suspect, who was removing shards of the broken glass from the window, police said. The homeowner was startled and fired a single shot....

In recent years, political polling has recorded undeniable gains for the pro-life movement. What used to be a 2 to 1 advantage for the term “pro-choice” over “pro-life,” has now shrunk to basically 50-50. But even in the early years of polling on the abortion, when intensity as a voting issue was gauged, the pro-life side generally enjoyed a 3-5 to 1 edge. The exceptions to this rule have always been A: major cities and college towns which tend to have more young and single people, and B: areas with large Jewish populations. In 20 years of working with candidates,...

Afghanistan’s Taliban-led insurgency is so heavily funded by foreign donations that U.S. and Afghan officials say it may be impossible to obstruct the group’s money supply, the Washington Post reported Sunday. The Obama administration said the group’s single largest source of funding comes from foreign donations -- not drugs like opium -- according to the newspaper. The CIA reportedly estimates that the Taliban received $106 billion in foreign money last year alone -- making it difficult for intelligence officials to track the terrorist group’s money flow. United Nations’ Taliban and Al Qaeda Monitoring Team Coordinator Richard Barrett, told the Washington...

DETROIT - Police say a Detroit woman fired shots at two men trying to steal her purse at a gas station, killing one of them. Detroit police spokesman John Roach tells the Detroit Free Press the 43-year-old woman had a license to carry the gun. Police say two men approached the woman about 5:30 a.m. Friday at a gas station on the city’s northwest side and stole her purse. She fired several shots and they fled. About a half hour later, a man with several gunshot wounds was brought to Detroit’s Sinai-Grace Hospital, where he died. Roach says investigators believe...

DALLAS - A teenage illegal immigrant from Jordan who allegedly planned to blow up a Dallas skyscraper appeared in federal court on Friday morning . Mosam Maher Husein Smadi, 19, faced a judge around 11 a.m., just blocks away from the building that, according to investigators, he attempted to destroy. Observers described Smadi as a small, soft-spoken man who speaks little English. In court, he told the judge that he understood his rights, and he accepted a court-appointed attorney . That lawyer said Smadi seemed to him to be a confused and scared young man. Smadi will likely be transferred...

US president Barack Obama Saturday, Sept. 26, threatened Iran with confrontation over the secrecy surrounding its nuclear capabilities. He did not rule out military options although he preferred diplomacy. The Iranian president’s own boss made him a liar. After Ahmadinejad claimed Friday the new uranium enrichment plant would start operations in 18 months and Tehran had therefore not broken the nuclear watchdog’s rules for notification, Ali Khamenei’s aide announced Saturday it would become operational “soon” and “make the enemies blind.” Tehran is clearly confident enough of America’s ability to hold Israel back from striking its nuclear sites to stay defiant...

The most popular headline at the Real Clear Politics website the other day was: “Is Obama Becoming A Joke?” With brilliant comedic timing, the very next morning the Norwegians gave him the Nobel Peace Prize. Up next: His stunning victory in this year’s Miss World contest. December 12, Johannesburg. You read it here first. For what, exactly, did he win the Nobel? As the president himself put it: “When you look at my record, it’s very clear what I have done so far. And that is nothing. Almost one year and nothing to show for it. You don’t believe me?...

News Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch has launched a stinging attack on Google and other online entities for stealing content. At a conference of World Media Executives at Beijing's Great Hall of the People, Rupert Murdoch has taken aim at search engines like Google as internet parasites. According to the News Corporation Chairman, the so-called "aggregators" on the internet steal content from traditional media organisations and, he says, the time has come for them to pay for it. "If we do not take advantage of the current movement toward paid-for content, it will be the content creators - the people in...

Two Pakistani officers were taken hostage and a lieutenant general was among the eight soldiers killed in a gunfight with presumed Taliban gunmen following their audacious invasion of the Pakistan’s army headquarters in capital Saturday, Oct. 10. Pakistani paramilitary forces battled a second group of insurgents for control of a road tunnel which connects the towns of Darra Adam Khel and Kohat in the North West Frontier Province. On May 15, DEBKA-Net-Weekly exclusively named Kohat and Kamra as keys to Pakistan’s nuclear and missile arsenals and reported that Kohat’s fall to the Taliban would cut Islamabad and the Pakistani high...

Al Shabaab extremists shoot 69-year-old after finding Bibles on him at checkpoint. NAIROBI, Kenya, September 18 (CDN) - The faith journey of a long-time underground Christian in Somalia ended in tragedy this week when Islamic militants controlling a security checkpoint killed him after finding Bibles in his possession. Militants from the Muslim extremist al Shabaab killed 69-year-old Omar Khalafe on Tuesday (Sept. 15) at a checkpoint they controlled 10 kilometers from Merca, a Christian source told Compass. A port city on the Indian Ocean 70 kilometers (45 miles) from Mogadishu, Merca is the main city of the Lower Shabele region....

Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki charged Wednesday, Oct. 7 that Tehran had "documents that prove US interference" in the disappearance of the nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri during a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia earlier this year. He spoke after attending an Iranian cabinet meeting. Six days after meeting the six powers on its nuclear program in Geneva, Tehran appears to be preparing a new crisis.

HAVERSTRAW (WABC) -- Police arrested two accused bandits after a home owner turned the tables on them. Both suspects were still dressed in hospital attire after making their first court appearance on Monday. Their alleged break-in at a Warren Avenue home didn’t quite turn out as planned. Police say when the pair entered the house around 9:30 Sunday night, the homeowner grabbed his rifle. “The confrontation escalated to the point where a couple of shots were fired. The two alleged perpetrators were both wounded, fled the scene and were apprehended a short time later by our police department,” Capt. Martin...

Nature has recently published an interesting paper which places severe limits on Darwinian evolution. The manuscript, from the laboratory of Joseph Thornton at the University of Oregon, is titled, “An epistatic ratchet constrains the direction of glucocorticoid receptor evolution.” The work is interpreted by its authors within a standard Darwinian framework, but the results line up very well with arguments I made in The Edge of Evolution. This is the second of several posts discussing it. Using clever synthetic and analytical techniques, Bridgham et al (2009) show that the more recent hormone receptor protein that they synthesized, a GR-like protein,...

VATICAN CITY (AP) - African bishops attending a Vatican meeting are speaking about the election of Barack Obama in divine terms—putting them very much at odds with many of their U.S. counterparts. Archbishop Gabriel Charles Palmer-Buckle of Accra, Ghana said Wednesday that there was "a divine plan behind" Obama's election. "It's like the biblical story repeating itself," he told reporters, citing the Old Testament figure Joseph, who after being sold into slavery in Egypt ends up becoming a top official. "We believe God has his own plans. God directs history," he said of the U.S. election. "We pray that it...

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Robert Spencer, the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is the author of nine books on Islam and Jihad, a weekly columnist for Human Events and Frontpagemag.com, and has led numerous seminars for the U.S. military and intelligence communities. He is the author of the new book, The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran. FP: Robert Spencer, welcome to Frontpage Interview. Spencer: Thanks, Jamie. It is always an honor to chat with a perceptive and honest thinker like you. FP: Well thank you. So how is this new...

US president Barack Obama praised the efforts of the organizations represented by the National Counterterrorism Center which he visited Tuesday, Oct. 6, crediting them with al Qaeda’s “lost operational capacity” and disappearing “legitimacy and credibility.” In its issue of Sept 25, DEBKA-Net-Weekly 415 offered a fuller and more accurate picture of al Qaeda’s situation. The top command did indeed suffer serious damage but has reduced it by speedily filling key gaps. Two new commanders are the Chechen Abu Zaar and Egyptian Abu Hafez.

No, that’s not a made-up headline. The foreclosed and/or evicted homeowners that have played such a role in the current economic meltdown - are they irresponsible borrowers that lived beyond their means or are victims that got swindled? Michael Moore is clear on where he thinks they fall. Moore matched up with Fox News and conservative talk radio host Sean Hannity on Hannity’s Oct. 6 program and Hannity attempted to have Moore explain why he didn’t think there was a personal responsibility angle to the home foreclosure crisis. Here’s how it unfolded (emphasis added): HANNITY: If you put your name...

WEST OAK LANE - October 11, 2009 (WPVI) -- A would-be robber is dead after one of his alleged victims fights back. It happened on North Street in Philadelphia’s West Oak Lane section early Sunday morning. Investigators say it apparently never crossed the thief’s mind that his victim just might be armed. Police say it was the man’s third robbery of the night. He forced the victim up against a vehicle along the street and demanded money. That’s when shots rang out - but not from the alleged robber. “’POW, POW, POW.’ Real loud gunshots.” Aaron Wisher was listening to...