Free Republic

A rare fungal infection that can strike healthy people is rising across the U.S., prompting calls from public health officials for heightened awareness and national tracking. Cladophialophora bantiana (C. bantiana) is a black yeast-like mold that can infect the brain and contains a dark pigment called melanin, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Data from a microbiology laboratory at the University of Washington shows that detection of the fungus nearly quadrupled between 2023 and 2025. Between January 2009 and July 2026, researchers identified 48 confirmed cases and one probable case of C. bantiana...

“This is how tyranny looks in the modern world. It arrives dressed as dialogue, consensus, and expertise. It is imposed by people who sincerely believe they are doing nothing at all.” —DataRepublican. Davos — The World Economic Forum (WEF)— is toast. Trump, Bessent, and Lutnick exposed the wretched org of overcompensated squishes to too much light and heat and it flared into such a pathetic little smoldering cinder that its spoxpersons said the meeting might get moved out of Davos altogether next year to Dublin or Detroit. Closer to the people, you understand (except there are hardly any people left...

“Literally everything the left did, every line they crossed and rule they broke, all came back to slap them in the face.” —Insurrection Barbie on “X”. Fulton County, GA, Election HQ, Nov 3, 2020 — the Night of the Broken Toilet. Indeed, you have a lot to be thankful for this week of humble national gratitude — for instance, the explosive new revelations as to just exactly how US elections have been rigged, and how, it now appears, Mr. Trump and his people, are prepared to go mad-dog on the sinister forces behind it. It all unspooled this Thanksgiving week,...

It's not long now until the 2024 total solar eclipse and, weather permitting, it should be a spectacular celestial event. As exciting as it is, there are a number of safety concerns, particularly in the parts of the US that will be in the path of totality, with some now announcing the deployment of the National Guard. The 2017 total solar eclipse, gorgeous as it was, took place during the solar minimum, the part of the Sun's 11-year cycle where activity is at its minimum. This year's eclipse coincides with the solar maximum, meaning not only should we get a...

The United Nations is under increasing attack by critics in the United States and other countries. At the heart of the organization's mounting problems is an almost total lack of accountability, which gives rise to suspicions of wholesale corruption. Existing evidence indicates that corruption and mismanagement go beyond the routine fraud, waste, and abuse of resources that mark all public-sector enterprises Available evidence coupled with the United Nations' unwillingness to undergo a thorough audit raise serious questions about its mission and the means used to carry it out.

At times, we lose perspective. Let us regain some of it by realizing that however bad Hurricane Katrina seemed, it was not the worst natural disaster during the past 12 months, nor even during the summer. In fact, it may not even be the deadliest hurricane: in Central America a mudslide caused by Hurricane Stan may have cost 1,400 lives in Guatemala just last week (figures vary), as opposed to Katrina's awful but smaller toll of 1,200. We are in a steep curve of chastisement.And then there is the Pakistani-Indian quake: more than 40,000 dead from the weekend tremors. These...

Can we win a war without acknowledging that we are at war. No, we cannot. The quandary in which coalition forces find themselves in Iraq today, is a proof that unless the enemy is totally subjugated, we cannot even pretend that the war is over. And the premature proclamation, "Mission Accomplished," on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, on May 1, 2003, only helped our adversaries. We must know that our enemy, has no scruples. It respects nothing and is totally ruthless. We can not overwhelm it by being scrupulous. We will have to rearrange our priorities by accepting that...