Free Republic

The food safety bill is almost certainly dead. Why? Don’t blame it on GOP obstructionism — while Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) robustly opposed the bill, citing its unpaid-for $1.4 billion price tag, and its new (and ineffective, he argued) regulations, that didn’t stop plenty of Republican senators from backing it. Instead, it’s because Senate majority leader Harry Reid forgot about that pesky constitutional requirement that all taxes originate in the House. Here’s the background: The Food Safety bill passed the House in 2009. It had stalled in the Senate, to many Democrats’ dismay, and so Reid spent valuable days...

If United States Senator Al Franken -- it hurts to say that -- ever had a redeeming moment, it was in the role of Stuart Smalley, a character he created for "Saturday Night Live." In the most memorable of Smalley's "Daily Affirmations," the lisping, wildly insecure psycho-babbler hosts Michael Jordan. After explaining to his audience that Jordan is "a basketball player for a professional basketball team," Smalley says to him, "You should be very proud of yourself." "Well, thank you, Stuart," says Jordan, "I am." Stunned by Jordan's self-assurance, Smalley blunders on: "I can imagine that the night before a...

FRANKLIN LAKES — The way Tom Murro tells it, a chance encounter with President Obama on a Martha's Vineyard golf course last summer had a transformative effect on him. Among Tom Murro's high-profile run-ins: President Obama, Natalie Portman, Dustin Hoffman and Kathie Lee Gifford. Suddenly, the Franklin Lakes father of two became the "Celebrity Magnet," known for an uncanny ability to attract, rub elbows and be photographed with some of the world's most famous people. Last April, Murro folded the mortgage company he had run for two decades and took to chronicling his exploits and conquests online at celebritymagnet.com. "Some...

Fáilte O’BamaIt’s President Barack Obama! And a green toilet plunger! On Saint Patrick’s Day! Obama, a Tea Partier, and an Irishman, are out walking along the beach together one day. They come across a lantern and a Genie pops out of it. "I will give you each one wish, that's three wishes in total", says the Genie. The Irishman says, "I am a fisherman, my Dad's a fisherman, his Dad was a fisherman and my son will be one too. I want all the oceans full of fish for all eternity." So, with a blink of the Genie's eye...

Even if Umar Farouq Abdulmuttalab had never boarded that Christmas flight from Amsterdam to Detroit wearing explosive underpants, a passage on page 17 of a report published in July by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security would still be eye-popping. “Not all known or reasonably suspected terrorists are prohibited from boarding an aircraft, or are subject to additional security screening prior to boarding an aircraft,” says the passage. http://www.dhs.gov/xoig/assets/mgmtrpts/OIGr_09-64_Jul09.pdf More than eight years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, people boarding commercial flights in the United States—and sometimes those boarding international flights bound for the United States—are...

Suppose Bill Gates had an identical twin brother, Walter. And suppose that Bill and Walter had identical interests, shared identical experiences. Suppose they were even identically driven. Now suppose that one day many years ago, something split the brothers. Perhaps they were waiting together at a bus stop, and a nearly-full bus pulled up. Only one brother can get on the bus, and the other must wait for the next bus. And let's suppose that this moment of separation had occurred at a key point in time, and that as a result it was Walter, instead of Bill, who went...

MELBOURNE (AFP) – Australia must boost defence spending to give its military the hardware to deal with strategic challenges presented by China's rise as a global superpower, an influential think tank has warned. China's growth meant the US, Australia's main military ally, would lose its dominant position in Asia in coming decades, creating uncertainty and a higher risk of conflict, the Lowy Institute for International Policy said.

NLONG VENG, Cambodia – He was one of the greatest mass killers of the 20th century, but that doesn't stop the hopeful from praying at Pol Pot's hillside grave for lucky lottery numbers, job promotions and beautiful brides. Nor does it stop tourists from picking clean the bones and ashes from the Khmer Rouge leader's burial ground in this remote town in northwestern Cambodia. The grave is among a slew of Khmer Rouge landmarks in Anlong Veng, where the movement's guerrillas made their last stand in 1998 just as Pol Pot lay dying. A $1 million tourism master plan is...

Driving his John Deere tractor Saturday, Richard was suddenly thumped with a pain “like a hard punch jumped up” and bit him in the heart. He bent over and grasped his sweater. Then he took it off to get a closer look. A .45-caliber bullet casing tumbled out, clattered onto the tractor and fell on the ground. He’d just been shot. It was a stray bullet, and it tore through his sweater, leaving a 1/2-inch hole, where it entered into the top center pocket of his coveralls and hit his cell phone. The bullet, coming in at a 45-degree angle,...

In Poker, Psychologists Place Bets On SkillIs it luck of the draw in poker? No, says Michael DeDonno, a doctoral student from Case Western Reserve University. (Credit: Image courtesy of Case Western Reserve University) ScienceDaily (Mar. 25, 2008) — Is it luck of the draw in poker? No, says Michael DeDonno, a doctoral student from Case Western Reserve University. He suggests putting your bets on skills over luck when playing the card game. DeDonno's findings from two poker-related studies with college students have implications for the gaming industry, and possibly even legal cases that challenge the theory of luck over...

NEW YORK - Doctors say they have never seen anything like it: A window washer who fell 47 stories from the roof of a Manhattan skyscraper is now awake, talking to his family and expected to walk again. Alcides Moreno, 37, plummeted almost 500 feet in a Dec. 7 scaffolding collapse that killed his brother. Somehow, Moreno lived, and doctors at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center announced Thursday that his recovery has been astonishing. He has movement in all his limbs. He is breathing on his own. And on Christmas Day, he opened his mouth and spoke for the...

Not only am I feeling lucky, I'm feeling optimistic. It feels good to be alive. I am grateful to God. I don't think it's impossible for you to win the lottery. It could happen. But if you think about it, we've all already won some sort of lottery. Let me get scientific with you for a bit. Ok, so here's the deal. So we all know (a) how babies are made and (b) where babies come from... ...in case you don't know: the answers are (a) extreme heat and excessive pressure and (b) imported from China. Seriously, though, after intercourse,...

DES MOINES, Iowa -- The Powerball prize goes to an estimated $161 million Saturday. None of the tickets sold for Wednesday night's night drawing matched all six numbers drawn, which were: 9-16-21-30-52 and Powerball 9. The Power Play number was 2. Players matching all five numbers and the Powerball would have won or shared the $140.6 million jackpot. Click here to find out more! One ticket that matched the first five numbers but missed the Powerball was sold in Pennsylvania. That ticket holder will win $200,000. Eight other similar tickets were also sold, two each were sold in North Carolina...

Luck exists. Success through luck does not exist. A coin can be tossed; money can depend on the outcome; you can bet, and it can come up your side. That is luck. If you follow that as a systematic strategy, however, probability theory states quite clearly that you can expect to end up approximately where you started. Real-world outlets that sustain themselves on their customers’ expectations of success through luck will not give you such generous odds. No lasting and permanent good comes to man through luck. It might seem at first that money could. After all, some inherit enormous...

Luck of the Irish pays off big time Last Updated: 12:36am GMT 22/01/2007 The Big Issue seller standing outside a newsagent in a seaside celebrity hideaway was singularly unimpressed by Europe's most spectacular economic success story. His reaction to the news that the Irish were now officially among the world's richest people was unprintable. As a purveyor of the homeless magazine in affluent Dalkey, the Dublin suburb where Bono, Enya and the film-maker Neil Jordan live, he was only too aware that the Celtic Tiger has yet to bestow its largesse on him. Others have been much luckier, as the...

Brian and Terry Leblanc were once a couple of average guys, spending their days washing windows and their nights drinking beer and watching sports on TV. In the late 1980s, the brothers won about $90,000 at Toronto's Woodbine race track and decided to put that money toward more sports betting. Within a few years, the Leblancs were managing a full-time betting operation from their home in Aylmer, Que., wagering up to $300,000 a week mostly on games such as Pro-Line. Their strategy was simple: bet huge amounts on events with incredibly long odds. Naturally, they lost most of the time,...

Essay Several years ago, an obese, diabetic patient of mine insisted on knee-replacement surgery against the wishes of her doctors, who believed that it would be too dangerous. She came through with flying colors. While everyone rightly praised the efforts of her surgeon and physical therapist, another factor in her recovery was ignored: luck. Why are doctors and patients so reluctant to discuss a phenomenon that permeates medicine every day? The likeliest reason that luck — good or bad — is so often disregarded is that at first glance, it appears contrary to the scientific basis of medicine. That is,...

MILWAUKEE - A farm in Wisconsin is quickly becoming hallowed ground for American Indians with the birth of its third white buffalo, an animal considered sacred by many tribes for its potential to bring good fortune and peace. "We took one look at it and I can't repeat what I thought but I thought, 'Here we go again,'" said owner Dave Heider. Thousands of people stopped by Heider's Janesville farm after the birth of the first white buffalo, a female named Miracle who died in 2004 at the age of 10. The second was born in 1996 but died after...

WASHINGTON, July 10, 2006 – Defense officials are attributing the 13th consecutive month in which every military service met or exceeded its active-duty recruiting goal to more than just good luck. Bryan Whitman, deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, cited the high priority every service has placed on recruiting, including the resources to back up that commitment, with successes measured both in numbers and quality of recruits. Active-duty recruiting numbers, both for June and for the first nine months of fiscal 2006, continued to exceed 100 percent of goal across the board, Whitman told reporters today. At the...

U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class “Lucky” sniffs for weapons and explosives while manning a traffic control point at the Sadr al Yusufiyah water treatment facility May 14, 2006. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Doug Pfeffer Soldiers Have ‘Luck’ On Their Side Sgt. 1st Class Lucky is a two-year-old white lab that specializes in locating weapons caches by scent. By U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Doug Pfeffer2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment CAMP STRIKER, Iraq, June 13, 2006 — While deployed to Iraq, soldiers from 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, have gained assistance in the searching of...