Free Republic

/8/2006 - LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFPN) -- An Air Force doctor is helping thousands of people in developing countries as a results of a chance encounter with Texas reservists at Rhein-Main Air Base, Germany, eight years ago. Lt. Col. (Dr.) Josef Schmid was in the regular Air Force working in the Rhein-Main clinic when a team of reservists from Lackland's 433rd Airlift Wing showed up for two weeks of annual tour training. “I didn’t even know they were reservists until someone said something," said Doctor Schmid, now assigned to the 433rd Medical Squadron here. After leaving active duty,...

CLINTON AIDES BATTLE FREEH OVER '60 MINUTES,' BOOK Sat Oct 08 2005 20:04:07 ET Under strong pressure from former President Bill Clinton's advisers, CBS's ''60 Minutes'' has agreed to read a statement denying an explosive charge being made on Sunday nght's program by former FBI director Louis Freeh, the WASHINGTON POST reports. In the statement, Samuel ``Sandy'' Berger, Clinton's national security adviser, challenges Freeh's assertion that Clinton failed to press Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah to cooperate with an investigation of the 1996 bombing of Khobar Towers in that country, and used the occasion to ask for a contribution to his...

I’m pleased as punch that Roger Waters and the rest of the original Pink Floyd troop (Gilmore, Mason, and Wright) reunited for the first time since 1981. At its very best, back in the day, Floyd was one group that never had to apologize for being so “studio.” Their use of special effects in sound was always subservient to the content and art of the writing, playing, and production of their work. Their music had the casual sophistication of something “Brit” even though these guys were blokes. Their album, “Animals,” for example, is a seething bestiary, ridiculing human foibles with...

Poor women cooking family meals in India are helping to melt the Arctic icecap, startling new studies show. Soot from their fires gets wafted into the atmosphere to fall out on the ice thousands of miles away, hastening its disappearance. In a vivid demonstration of interconnectedness, Nasa scientists have found that one-third of the soot affecting the Arctic comes from South Asia. And Indian studies show that nearly half of the soot emitted in the region comes from cooking fires. Last November a major study by some 300 scientists found that the icecap had thinned by nearly half over the...

Last week, George W. Bush took the oath of office and began his second term. With 150,000 troops still in Iraq, Iran developing nuclear weapons and new leadership in the Palestinian Authority, the Middle East will continue to dominate White House attention.To what extent will Bush's second term be different from his first? For better or worse, not much.Pundits who keep a scorecard of second-term appointments forget three factors: First, this president remains firm in his views. When he speaks about freedom, liberty and democracy, he is sincere. Second, the rank-and-file of not only the CIA, but also of the...

Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri is an Indian-born scientist who currently chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He's also an unabashed environmental activist, a role he acts out as head, since 2001, of the Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI). This organization sponsors in thousands of India's schools the Green Olympiad movement, which is a competition designed to test and enhance the knowledge of Indian schoolchildren about environmental issues and whose winners will be invited to participate in Terraquiz, the only environmental quiz show on Indian national television. Well, thank God for small favors. At least there aren't two environmental...

Editor's note: Readers may also be interested in Iran: The Invisible Revolution. During the U.S. presidential campaign, debate over Iran policy received unprecedented attention. The reasons are multifold. With Iran on the verge of developing both nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile capability, Washington policymakers can no longer ignore the Iranian threat, especially when confidants of Supreme Leader Ali Khomenei lead televised chants of "American will be annihilated," as Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati did last June. American concern over a nuclear Iran is multifold. The danger is not necessarily that Iran would conduct a nuclear first strike, although former president Ali Akbar...