Free Republic

Can the Catholic Church survive Carla Bruni's attack on Benedict XVI? Gerald Warner May 19, 2009 Well, that's it! He's really done it this time. Pope Benedict XVI has apparently driven Carla Bruni, First Lady of France, out of the Catholic Church on account of his opposition to the use of condoms in Africa and his claim that they aggravate the Aids problem. "I was born Catholic," said Bruni, "I was baptised, but in my life I feel profoundly secular. I find that the controversy coming from the Pope's message - albeit distorted by the media - is very damaging."...

The beautifully preserved remains of a 47-million-year-old, lemur-like creature have been unveiled in the US. The preservation is so good, it is possible to see the outline of its fur and even traces of its last meal. The fossil, nicknamed Ida, is claimed to be a "missing link" between today's higher primates - monkeys, apes and humans - and more distant relatives. But some independent experts, awaiting an opportunity to see the new fossil, are sceptical of the claim. And they have been critical of the hype surrounding the presentation of Ida. The fossil was launched amid great fanfare at...

In what could prove to be a landmark discovery, a leading paleontologist said scientists have dug up the 47 million-year-old fossil of an ancient primate whose features suggest it could be the common ancestor of all later monkeys, apes and humans. Anthropologists have long believed that humans evolved from ancient ape-like ancestors. Some 50 million years ago, two ape-like groups walked the Earth. One is known as the tarsidae, a precursor of the tarsier, a tiny, large-eyed creature that lives in Asia. Another group is known as the adapidae, a precursor of today's lemurs in Madagascar. Based on previously limited...

By what reasoning has the administration decided that pushing Israel to permit a new Palestinian state would -- in any way -- diminish the threat from Iran? Do they believe that Iran's (or I should say the Iranian leadership's) genocidal hostility toward Israel is the result of lack of progress toward an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza? … President Obama has sent abundant signals that his foreign policy is 50 percent wishful thinking and 50 percent leftwing mush. There may not be any easy answers to the problem of a nuclear Iran. But pressuring Israel to...

Martin Feldstein doesn’t exactly sugar-coat this peek into a bleak future of high unemployment, loss of American competitiveness, and essentially all the worst parts of the 1970s and 1930s in American economics. The former Reagan advisor and now Harvard professor says that Barack Obama has learned all the wrong lessons from history. While Obama’s tax cuts are mainly illusory, the tax hikes are very real, and will kill any hope of a recovery this year, and perhaps ever: Mr. Obama’s biggest proposed tax increase is the cap-and-trade system of requiring businesses to buy carbon dioxide emission permits. The nonpartisan Congressional...

Space Shuttle Atlantis has grabbed the Hubble Space Telescope, the "capture" went flawless and the next step will be the space walks and repairs, beginning Thursday.

Glenn said China uses the US Dollar to back it's currency but it knows the US currency is going to soon be worth nothing. So, it is pushing the IMF to sell off it's gold and Barney Frank is advocating hard from the US. Meanwhile, China is converting all of it's US dollars it currently uses to back it's currency to gold mines and other natural resources and will then begin to sell of assets. The American enconomy will collapse. I hope I did that justice, but that's basically what he is saying. The Fed's just ran a war game,...

Obama/Waxman push $3,100 per-family tax by Memorial Day! From the Desk of: Steve Elliott, President, Grassfire.org Alliance Our sources are telling me that President Obama and Rep. Henry Waxman are pushing for a key vote on the Carbon Tax BEFORE Memorial Day -- a tax that studies show will cost each family $3,100 each and every year. Last week, Obama met behind closed doors with House Democrats to pressure them to pass the Carbon Tax. Now, Waxman is even contemplating skipping the Subcommittee hearing on the $2 trillion Carbon Cap and Trade Tax and fast-tracking this new tax straight to...

Sam Donaldson slams Rush -- Robert Reich to the rescue.

The Pope brings the Truth to the Middle East - not a peace plan By George Pitcher. 10 May 2009 Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Israel today, amid some of the tightest security ever to accompany a visiting dignitary. Unsurprising at any time, given the febrile and fractious nature of Middle East diplomacy, but a particularly vulnerable aura surrounds the Pope on this tour, as a consequence of recent events that have again poisoned the well of Jewish-Christian relations. The fear is that the lone fanatic with a gun will have gained renewed motivation from the Pope's apparent enthusiasm for...

Obama bites rich hands that fed him By: Jeanne Cummings May 5, 2009 08:01 PM EST For a politician who sometimes got accused of playing class warfare, candidate Barack Obama sure made a lot of well-to-do friends during the 2008 campaign. The big question now is whether President Barack Obama can keep them. One striking, if little-noted, trend of the past presidential election was that Obama won the affluent vote — those making more than $200,000 annually — with 52 percent. Moving down the income scale a bit, he and John McCain essentially tied among those making between $100,000 and...

May 5th, 2009 - 3:12 pm EST By Sindh Today | Category: UnCat, World Moscow, May 5 (DPA) Russia is to expel the head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s information office from Moscow, a report said Tuesday, in a sign of a continued deterioration of the country’s relations with the Western military alliance. Diplomat Isabelle Francois and a NATO colleague are expected to be told formally to leave Russia Wednesday morning, the Interfax news agency said, citing a source in the Russian foreign ministry. This follows last week’s expulsion by NATO of two Russian diplomats for spying. NATO also...

Who pays for new fuels? Obama says: You will! By Patrick Bedard, Car and Driver June 2009 Remember last summer when crude oil was bumping its head on $147 a barrel and you were smoking your Visa card as each necessary gallon of regular zoomed skyward of four bucks? Talk about panic. Public opinion across the nation narrowed to a single uncertainty: Was this a disaster or a catastrophe? Detroit still says that it was last summer's spike in gas prices that finally pushed the Big Three over the financial cliff. Suddenly, the line for the high-profit rides was none...

Asian Stock Markets Rally on Optimism Over China By BETTINA WASSENER Published: May 4, 2009 HONG KONG — Asian stock markets on Monday rallied to some of their highest levels since mid-October as investors focused on the latest signs of economic stabilization in China and shrugged off concerns about a global swine flu pandemic and the fallout of Chrysler’s bankruptcy filing last week. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong rose 3.9 percent to its highest since mid-October, and the Shanghai composite index in mainland China rose 2.3 percent. The Taiex index in Taiwan jumped more than 6 percent, buoyed...

When the conglomerates behind the viciously anti-Catholic book "The DaVinci Code" were looking for a director, Newsweek reported Ron Howard had a secret weapon: his aw-shucks child-star Opie Taylor likeability. "Ron is not a polarizer," said one. "We all knew the book was quite controversial, and we were ready for that. But we didn’t want to add to it." In that same article in 2006, it became clear that Howard wasn’t going to make the film less vicious (or less filled with historical lies and distortions) than the book. There would be "no placating. It would be ludicrous to take...

Last week's reader comments made it quite clear that the "Goldman Conspiracy" and Wall Street's growing power and control of our American democracy are deeply disturbing hot-button issues. Many demand bold, aggressive actions, even criminal prosecution, like those coming from the new administration and the New York attorney general. Read previous Paul B. Farrell. So what about a federal prosecution under RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act?

Writing about politics in Washington DC can be difficult, because the things that really happen here too often look like some theater-of-the-absurd production. It’s hard to make up the stuff seen routinely in this town. DC is a target-rich environment for absurdity, a truly reality-optional area. While often you simply fall right off the reality train, sometimes you actually get pushed: - Facing outrage over a porked-up budget proposal that exceeds 3 trillion dollars (imagine a warehouse filled with hundred dollar bills – then imagine two more), the President has ordered his Cabinet to “slash” $100 million from the budget,...

The phony hypocritical apologists helping Notre Dame build its “Catholic Potemkin village” have had their way long enough. Now it’s time for the truth. As we draw closer to May17, when Barack Obama will speak at Notre Dame’s graduation ceremony the school’s secular apologists are turning up their barrage of lies and misinformation. They want to talk about phony issues not Obama’s murderous intentions toward innocent babies. We’re supposed to forget Notre Dame knows full well what’s in Obama’s evil heart. Contrary to these apologists’ self delusions, we are not against Obama because he is Black or necessarily because of...

<p>Police officers wearing a surgical mask guard the entrance to the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City, on April 26, 2009.</p>

Tragedy of girl who leapt to her death after she could not get over her sister's murder By STEPHEN WRIGHT and LUCY BALLINGER 24th April 2009 The tormented younger sister of a schoolgirl raped and murdered by a serial sex offender has leapt to her death from the top of a car park. Nishma Raithatha, 15, is said never to have come to terms with the murder of her sister Jeshma nearly four years ago. Jeshma, a 17-year-old A-level student, was sexually assaulted and knifed in the heart by Viktor Dembovskis on her way home from school in May 2005....