Free Republic

Researchers tracking smartphone data say they recently made a disturbing discovery: For the first time since states began implementing stay-at-home orders in mid-March to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus, Americans are staying home less. The nationwide shift during the week of April 13 was relatively slight. However, any loss of momentum, particularly when stay-in-place orders remain in effect across most of the country, has some public health experts worried about "quarantine fatigue." Any increase in travel, they say, is premature when staying home remains the most effective way to limit the spread of the virus until widespread testing...

Lots of tense, awkward laughter on NPR today! Hillary Clinton's book tour took her to "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross this afternoon, where the two got into it a bit over if and when Clinton "evolved," as they say, on the issue of gay marriage, or whether she held her personal opinions in favor of equality until they were politically viable. The answer is: Clinton is not telling. But it wasn't for Gross's lack of trying. "So what's it like when you're in office and you have to do all these political calculations to not be able to support something...

Bart Ehrman, prolific author, New Testament scholar and former evangelical Christian, says it took him eight years to research and complete his new book, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee. Yet, a group of fellow scholars responded in their book, How God Became Jesus, by claiming that the Christian-turned-agnostic's "sloppy" scholarship on Jesus' divinity leaves much to be desired. Ehrman, the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, says his research reveals that Jesus, a first century Galilean, never claimed to be God, and that it...

A friend of mine from a previous life has been lobbying me to move to Idaho before TSHTF. If I could only afford to retire, I'd take him up on it. But I'm gainfully employed now and need the income.Next, he sends me a transcript of Idaho Primary Election Results to prove even the lowest vote candidate in most GOP primaries still gets more votes than all total votes in the Democrat primary. How can a state so big and so geographically dispersed have such uncommonly common sense?

Audio at link

"Grid girls" are as much a part of international motorsports as high-octane fuel, ear plugs, and fiery crashes. Before each race, grid girls take up positions behind the starting line, holding up the national flag of the team and the vehicle's number. They also, it seems, spend a good deal of time just hanging out and looking hot. Long may they wave.

Highland Park enacted Lake County’s first smoking ban Wednesday, a move local health officials say is something they hope all municipalities will soon consider.It means all indoor public areas, including restaurants, taxis and places of work, in the city are off limits to smokers. The ordinance was approved by the city council in April.“The second-hand smoke issue is becoming really big,” said Bill Mays, the county health department’s director of community health services. “Highland Park’s leadership in this regard is an important precedent.”Health department officials say the action is the most sweeping they’ve seen. That’s due, in part, because Highland...

Republican Dino Rossi yesterday inched further ahead of Democratic Attorney General Christine Gregoire after 24 of the state's 39 counties finished recounting ballots in Washington's closest-ever race for governor. The statewide recount continues today and is expected to wrap up tomorrow. But both sides have hinted they might ask for another recount, possibly a hand count that could take up to two weeks to complete. The recount is likely to hinge on the outcome of 710 so-called enhanced ballots in Democratic-leaning King County, where election workers are trying to determine the intent of voters who mismarked their ballots. Meanwhile, the...

Killjoy mayor turns New York into the forbidden Apple Paul Harris in New York Sunday January 11, 2004 The Observer The barmaid leaned over the counter, folded a beer mat into a crude ashtray, then stubbed her cigarette out in it. 'We call that a Mike Bloomberg,' she said with venom, referring to New York's tough-talking mayor. In this city where public smoking is banned, she was breaking the law - just one of many stringent regulations which critics claim are stifling the life of 'the city that never sleeps'. New York was once the place where anything goes, but...

Doh! "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening may have crossed the line with his comment last week to National Public Radio's Terry Gross that Fox media empire almost sued itself. (Now that takes some talent!) The story goes that Fox News Channel execs were none too thrilled last year when the wildly popular cartoon, which is on Fox Broadcasting, featured a fake news ticker mocking the station's conservative rep. The headlines included gems such as: "Do Democrats Cause Cancer? . . . Study: 92 percent of Democrats are gay . . . JFK posthumously joins Republican Party . . ." ***snip****...

Sun, Feb. 23, 2003 Fame, not fortune, for public radio hostBy Patricia HornInquirer Staff Writer One of the region's most prominent cultural voices, Terry Gross, is host of Fresh Air, a weekday radio talk show produced by Philadelphia's WHYY-FM. Each week, four million people listen to her probing interviews, which are carried by 425 public radio stations nationwide. Yet WHYY, her employer, did not list Gross among its top earners on its 2001 federal tax form. After being questioned by The Inquirer about why its list of top-paid employees did not include its nationally known star, the station discovered it...

By Jean Rimbach, The Record, Hackensack, N.J. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News Dec. 31--Patrons belly up, and plunk down $9 a shot. But Atlantic City bartender George Kuhna isn't serving up the latest party drink. He's bubbling up scented oxygen and feeding gamblers, tourists, and conventioneers via a hose and a timer. Each hooks up to Lucite cylinders containing water in a choice of red, yellow, blue, or green and an array of fragrances to match. "It's pretty cool. I feel a lot better than I did when I started. I feel so fresh," says Maren Ferro, 23, of Franklin Lakes...