Free Republic

While viewing the news this morning and getting aggravated that there were so few real conservative candidates to choose from, I started running through my mind the list of real, credible conservatives on the political scene. Frankly, that was a short list. One person that came to mind, however, was Sen. Saxby Chambliss. While I have been out of the political scene in Georgia for some time now, my recollection is that he was quite conservative, and he seems to get a great deal of respect from the press and from his collegues. He and I have had our differences...

SACRAMENTO – The state Board of Education has voted against offering alternative assessments for students who fail to pass California's high school exit exam. ~snip~ About 100,000 seniors, more than one-fifth of the state's roughly 450,000 high school seniors, had not passed at least one of the sections at the start of this school year.

All 12-year-olds at a comprehensive will be told today that homework is being scrapped because teachers have better things to do than mark it. Dr Patrick Hazlewood, the head teacher of St John's in Marlborough, Wilts, who has already scrapped subject teaching, will not put it quite like that, of course. He will tell them that, to make their schooling more "relevant to life in the 21st century", they are to be given responsibility for "managing their own learning". Parents, who were told on Monday, are confused because, according to school policy, "regular homework is an essential element of learning...

Editor: This article was written in April, but its message is still highly relevant:      During his primary campaign, John Kerry traveled on private jets, ate lavish dinners with his ever-present and presumably loving wife, was spared any criticsm from his competitors and was lionized by a leftist media.  To recover from the extreme ''stress'' of this routine, the senator took a week's vacation at his wife's multimillion-dollar getaway in Idaho.       Every eligible American voter must now ask:       If simple campaigning made Kerry snap at a man who asked him who the foreign leaders were that he claimed were...

John Kerry Flip-Flops on When to Use His Catholic Belief on Politics by Steven Ertelt LifeNews.com Editor October 14, 2004 Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- In an editorial column on Friday, Fr. Michael Reilly, a NewsMax.com opinion writer, says he spotted a contradiction in Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's use of his Catholic faith vis-a-vis public policy. When it comes to issues like abortion, John Kerry has said he can't use his Catholic faith to legislate policy against abortion. As a result, he has voted six times against a ban on partial-birth abortion and 25 times during his twenty year Senate...

Hagar (not her real name) is a divorced mother of two trying to remain faithful to God and work to support her children. Hagar recently hired a young lady, L., from church to provide childcare (at Hagar's apartment) while she went to work during the day. She came home one day and looked in the refrigerator and the boxes and packages of food appeared to be in good supply. She looked in the freezer to make sure her list was complete and the ice cream container looked fine as did some other packages of food. To her chagrin H. quickly...

Code: ZE04072401 Date: 2004-07-24 90 Million Missing Females, and a $45 Trillion Gap The Fruits of Misguided Family Planning NEW YORK, JULY 24, 2004 (Zenit.org).- While the United Nations and family planning groups continue in their efforts to lower birthrates, several recent books have drawn attention to the severe economic and social problems linked to having too few children. One book, "Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population," takes a look at the consequences of an overabundance of young adult males, called "bare branches" in Chinese. Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer observe that China and...

It’s a popular perception that the Democrats are fun and the Republicans aren’t. If one thinks of the word “Democrat” or “liberal” in relation to the subject of personal enjoyment, it’s a popular idea that they are the way far out hippie crowd that are sunning themselves on college campuses with scantily clad maidens who have flowers woven through their hair, while they’re smoking enough pot to comprise the marijuana output of a small 3rd world nation. Democrats appear on MTV and are by and large the beneficiaries of “rock the vote” events. Democrats get to go on the cover...

<p>WASHINGTON – NASA may be aiming for the moon and even Mars, but it has not yet laid the groundwork for modernizing the aging space- shuttle fleet, a government report said Friday.</p> <p>A year after the shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas, killing all seven astronauts aboard, NASA has not figured out how to upgrade the three remaining shuttles to make them safe and usable for at least the next 15 years, the General Accounting Office said.</p>

<p>SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - California Gov. Gray Davis criticized the Bush administration and the Republican-led Congress today for failing to reimburse states for their homeland security costs.</p> <p>Target-rich California alone is spending more than $500 million a year on increased security after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Davis said. During the recent national upgrade to alert level ``orange,'' the California Highway Patrol spent more than $1 million on extra patrols and precautions over a two-week period, he said.</p>

Australia's eight "spidernauts" are among the casualties of the space shuttle disaster. Students and scientists involved in the project were eagerly waiting to see if the Australian Golden Orb Weaver spiders have been able to spin webs in space. They had spent 16 days in the space shuttle Columbia as part of a project to see if webs built at zero gravity are different to those created on the ground. Low resolution video images of the spiders suggest they have successfully built webs. If this had proved correct, scientists would have attempted to mimic the spider silk in aerospace structures...