Free Republic

THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. This is an extraordinary period for America's economy. Over the past few weeks, many Americans have felt anxiety about their finances and their future. I understand their worry and their frustration. We've seen triple-digit swings in the stock market. Major financial institutions have teetered on the edge of collapse, and some have failed. As uncertainty has grown, many banks have restricted lending. Credit markets have frozen. And families and businesses have found it harder to borrow money.

Here's the good news: this summer's Arctic ice melt means an early start to the Hudson Bay shipping season. Forecasts show Coast Guard icebreakers will no longer be necessary for shipping to Churchill after July 16. That's 15 days earlier than the average ice-free shipping date of July 31, which means re-supply barges should able to reach communities in Nunavut's Kivalliq and Kitikmeot regions that much earlier. But the down side to the retreat of the Arctic's thin ice cover is a 50-50 chance that the North Pole will become ice-free this September - for the first time in more...

We're not ready to share all the details about our upcoming evening lie-detecting with Obama accuser Larry Sinclair, but there are a few things that we want to tell you – namely that we've agreed on a time and place to carry out our wager with Mr. Sinclair. We're going to meet him on Tuesday, February 26th at a undisclosed location in New York City. We've picked a polygraph expert, too: a renowned expert who has been involved in quite a few high-profile cases who we're not going to name until the results are not only in, but have been...

They're mostly a liberal bunch. Yet the would-be chairmen in a House under Democratic control promise to rule from the center. They'd have little choice, given the likely balance of power they would confront if elected. George W. Bush would still occupy the Oval Office, and no one thinks Democrats could win control of the House by more than a few seats next month. And that would include three dozen or more moderate "blue dog" Democrats. The dynamics ensure that despite the overwhelmingly liberal cast of the chairmen-to-be — as measured by liberal interest groups such as Americans for Democratic...

Release No. 20060912-01 FALLUJAH, Iraq – Recent media reports fail to accurately capture the entirety and complexity of the current situation in the Al Anbar Province of Iraq. The classified assessment, which has been referred to in these reports, was intended to focus on the causes of the insurgency. It was not intended to address the positive effects Coalition and Iraqi forces have achieved on the security environment over the past years. That said, there is an active insurgency in Anbar. The enemy we face has no concern for the welfare of the Iraqi people, nor any peaceful vision for...

ONE in three people does not believe official statistics according to a survey ... by the Office for National Statistics. Only four in ten trust government figures - suggesting that spin doctors have created a climate of public distrust about official statistics, even when the data is accurate. Just 17 per cent think government figures such as hospital waiting lists and reported crimes are produced without any political interference and only 14 per cent feel such figures are used honestly. But the report itself highlighted a common pitfall of statistical analysis: one third of those surveyed said they "didn't know"...

For centuries, China has been hailed the last great untapped market in the world. One enterprising Englishman in the 1850s famously said that if he “could add an inch of material to every Chinaman's shirt tail, Manchester weavers would go forever.” In order to reach their goals of breaking into the Chinese market, Britain flooded the country with opium through India, sucking money out of the hands of addicted Chinese, and then in 1848 finally defeating China in the opium war and forcing open its doors to the West. Most of the western European powers, on the other hand, were...

The West turned a bloody battle in a brutal civil war into a clash between good and evil. by Tara McCormack It is 10 years since the internationally brokered Dayton Agreement ended the civil war in Bosnia-Hercegovina, the worst of the conflicts of the former Yugoslavia. In the West, the Yugoslav wars have became iconic symbols of both the transformed nature of war and conflict after the end of the Cold War, and of the moral imperative for new forms of Western intervention. From the early stages of the war in 1992, the Bosnian conflict was reported not as a...

CHICAGO (AP) -- New research highlights a frustrating fact about science: What was good for you yesterday frequently will turn out to be not so great tomorrow. The sobering conclusion came in a review of major studies published in three influential medical journals between 1990 and 2003, including 45 highly publicized studies that initially claimed a drug or other treatment worked. Subsequent research contradicted results of seven studies -- 16 percent -- and reported weaker results for seven others, an additional 16 percent. That means nearly one-third of the original results did not hold up, according to the report in...

LONDON, Jan 29 (Reuters) - The BBC apologised on Saturday for erroneously reporting that U.S.-led and Iraqi forces may be responsible for the deaths of 60 percent of Iraqi civilians killed in conflict over the last six months. The British broadcaster said on Friday in broadcasts and a news statement that its Panorama investigative show would air a report on Sunday citing "confidential" records from Iraq's health ministry to support the contention. Iraq's health minister said the BBC misinterpreted the statistics it had received and had ignored statements from the ministry clarifying the figures. "Today, the Iraqi Ministry of Health...

Kennedy offers blessing to KerryHoward Dean tells delegates never to be ashamed of party By William L. Watts & Corbett B. Daly Last Update: 10:45 PM ET July 27, 2004 BOSTON (CBS.MW) -- Ted Kennedy, whose brother John F. Kennedy captivated the nation more than four decades ago, offered his blessing Tuesday night to another JFK from Massachusetts who hopes to get to the White House. John Kerry "is a war hero who understands that America's strength comes from many sources -- especially the power of our ideas. He knows that a true leader inspires hope and vanquishes fear," Kennedy...

Reagan's reign wasn't all sunshine and accoladesEnough already. Enough of the beatification and the warm, fuzzy revisionism. Enough of the bogus notion that he was loved by all and that his policies harmed few. Enough of the overwrought sentimentality. It's time for a Ronald Reagan corrective. It's been five days since the 40th U.S. president died. As his coast-to-coast farewell tour drags on, it seems the only voices coming from my television are the ones whose memories of the 1980s come wrapped in gauze. The voices in the real world aren't as unanimous or magnanimous.

****Koo says Chen would have won by 100,000 without law change*** Senior officials and lawyers of the governing Democratic Progressive Party rebutted charges by pan-blue lawmakers and an Academia Sinica (’†‰›Œ¤‹†‰@) researcher that the result of the March 20 presidential election was determined by widespread "vote rigging" as "entirely without any foundation in fact." Incumbent President Chen Shui-bian (’…G) and Vice President Annette Lu (˜CG˜@) of the DPP won the poll by less than 30,000 votes by snaring 6.47 million votes or 50.12 percent of the ballots compared to 6.44 million for the pan-blue ticket of Kuomintang Chairman Lien Chan...

USA Today's recent ethical troubles with their former reporter Jack Kelley are the fault of the newspaper's and their determination to expand coverage beyond the United States and make it more "upscale." "When big-time blunders occur in any workplace, the boss or bosses usually are at fault, not clerks or secretaries or salespeople," USA Today's founder Neuharth wrote in his weekly USA Today column, a copy of which Editor & Publisher obtained today. Wrote Neuharth "Not reporters, the buck stops with the boss." The column appears just days after USA Today Publisher Craig Moon received a long-awaited, confidential report from...

There's been a lot of chatter on the web, and I've received lots of e-mails from readers, concerning Arnold Kling's open letter to Paul Krugman, posted yesterday on Tech Central Station. I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth — it's great to see an economist take on Krugman in public. But truth be told, I think Kling's critique fails to come to grips with what's wrong with Paul Krugman. For the moment, I'm afraid, I'll have to withhold Kling's membership in the Krugman Truth Squad. Kling sets up a framework in which economic propositions can be argued...

New fears have been raised over the health of Europe's economy after France reported negative growth. The French economy shrank by 0.3% during the April to June period, official figures revealed. France's economy, the second largest in the eurozone, steadily weakened during 2002. However, marginally more upbeat figures in the first three months of 2003 had raised hopes of an improvement. But the latest contraction will dash hopes of a turnaround and is likely to weigh heavily on investor sentiment. FRENCH ECONOMIC GROWTH Q1 2002: +0.7% Q2 2002: +0.5% Q3 2002: +0.3% Q4 2002: -0.1% Q1 2003 +0.2% Q2 2003...

Today Imus asked Benard to prepare a list of questions for 8/2/02 to GRILL Lieberman on about when he will call Robert Rubin to the senate for questioning on various involement in these corporate scandals. I would like to see what questions we can come up with as a collective, (sorry too socialist) commonsense group that Imus might use to ask this hypocrite.

The number of local AIDS cases has declined overall, contradicting a recent federal report that appears to show an uptick in the disease rate, Houston health officials said this week. The local trend, officials said, mirrors national statistics. quot;The way the data was presented is not representative of what is actually happening in (AIDS),quot; Kathy Barton, spokeswoman for the Houston Department of Health and Human Services, said Wednesday. quot;We have always prided ourselves in coming out with the most accurate data, the most representative data, so that the public and policy makers can make appropriate decisions.quot; New data from the...