Free Republic

The phone rang and it was Ross Perot, who hasn't given an interview in years. Perot, who won 19 percent of the vote in the 1992 presidential election, making him one of the strongest third-party candidates in American history, got straight to the point. "Remember what you wrote about John McCain in the March 13, 2000, NEWSWEEK?" "Sure," I lied. "When McCain called Perot 'nuttier than a fruitcake'?" The Texas billionaire, now 77, still has some scores to settle from the Vietnam era, and his timing is exquisite. Just days before the South Carolina GOP primary, he wants me to...

BP's engineers can't stop the gushing oil spill, but a young genius from Long Island says she found the solution in less time than it takes most people to finish a crossword puzzle. Since the "top kill," "junk shot" and "top hat" techniques failed to end the environmental nightmare, Alia Sabur -- who started her engineering Ph.D. at age 14 -- is pushing for a more radical idea. The Northport native, who started reading before she could walk and who at 18 broke a 300-year-old record to become the youngest-ever college professor, proposes surrounding a pipe with deflated automobile tires,...

When President Barack Obama signed his executive order to allow human embryos to be mined for their stem cells in order to help older, more powerful humans, there was much excited applause. The applause came from so many, their eyes bright, lit as if from within. It came from those who believe in scientific progress as the answer to the problems of the modern world, believing as fervently as any monk on the slopes of Mt. Athos believes in the Resurrection of Christ. In signing the order last week, the president said that the Bush administration, which strictly limited such...

In Marxist theory, capitalist drones afflicted by false consciousness are constantly indulging in the fetishism of commodities -- placing material possessions on an absurdly high pedestal. Likewise, critics of the practice of obtaining patent protection on life forms -- generally found on the neo-Marxist left -- object that by patenting life we heartlessly commodify it. More fundamentally than either the argument from exploitation (or that from enclosure), the commodification objection confronts the very essence of the practice of patenting life. If exploitation critics focused on the potential for suffering by one side of the transaction, and if the enclosure opponents...

The insertion of human stem cells into monkey brains runs a "real risk" of altering the animals' abilities in ways that might make them more like us, scientists said today. A panel of 22 experts -- including primatologists, stem cell researchers, lawyers and philosophers -- debated the possible consequences of the technique for more than a year. While the group agrees it is "unlikely that grafting human stem cells into the brains of non-human primates would alter the animals' abilities in morally relevant ways," the members "also felt strongly that the risk of doing so is real and too ethically...

Terri's brain needs the growth of brain cells. According to CNN.com 3-22-05 Sydney, Australia Brain cells can be multiplied fron tissue taken from the nose. What a great opportunity. some judge SOMEWHERE should immediately restore terri's sustanance and let the EXPERIMENT OF THE CENTURY BEGIN.

LONDON (Reuters) - A program made by Britain's BBC says North Korea (news - web sites) is killing political prisoners in experimental gas chambers and testing new chemical weapons on women and children. Titled "Access to Evil" and being aired on Sunday, the program features an official North Korean document that says political prisoners are used to test new chemical weapons. In a statement, the BBC said the documentary included comments by Kwon Hyuk, a new name given to a former military attache at the North Korean embassy in Beijing and chief of management at Prison Camp 22. Using a...

... According to a new sex survey, 66 percent of German women have had sex with another lady...

If you think there's more talk about education reform than meaningful action, here's a reason: Those who have the power to push reform rarely know much about kids and education, and those who know about kids and education rarely have much power. Ralph Barrett is in the second category. He knows about kids and education, but he doesn't have much power -- at least not the kind that would allow him to change the way "the system" works. Barrett was Osceola County's 2002 Teacher of the Year. He started teaching in 1971, and does his thing at the old Ross...