Free Republic

The call by Democratic senators Chuck Schumer and Carl Levin for AIPAC to back passage of the stalled START treaty with Russia speaks volumes about the growing desperation of both the White House and its Senate allies. The administration is reportedly going all-out to push Jewish groups to lobby for the treaty, but it is unlikely that AIPAC will succumb to the pressure. The group has been scrupulous about sticking to its agenda of working only on behalf of Israel-related issues, a policy that keeps it strictly neutral on arms control measures like START.

Regular readers of this blog remember the town hall-ducking tactics of Democrat Rep. Melissa Bean of Illinois. (Refreshers here, here and here.) She now has a new method of shielding herself from taxpayers’ tough questions. The beleaguered Democrat has apparently hired her own muscle man to glower and menace troublesome constituents. Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft showcases the video: (video) Who is Democrat Rep. Melissa Bean’s muscle man? By Michelle Malkin • August 16, 2010 01:23 PM Regular readers of this blog remember the town hall-ducking tactics of Democrat Rep. Melissa Bean of Illinois. (Refreshers here, here and here.) She now...

Which came first the chicken or the egg? If you believe the Judeo-Christian story of creation found in the book of Genesis the answer is simple: the chicken. God spoke, and bam! Plump juicy chicken. He then observed His creation and said that it was "good." I however have not been so fortunate. Not long ago, here in San Diego, I ordered the Oven Roasted Chicken sandwich from fast-food giant Subway, and saw that it was not good, because what they called chicken looked more like a white sponge on a bun. I was shocked, realizing that this was not...

Chrysler runs out of gas, Chevy hits the accelerator - on the same day. The 2010 Camaro rolls onto America's roadways as the Detroit giant calls it quits. Oh, the irony.

For people suffering from heart failure, simply walking to the mailbox can seem like an impossible challenge. But now, an experimental heart surgery may provide dramatic relief. The innovative source of this treatment is a patient's own stem cells. A small scar can be life changing. It means for the first time in six years Richard Howell is enjoying retirement. For six years, heart failure left Richard too weak to leave his living room. And it put him at risk for other serious health problems, including organ failure. Richard Howell: "I'd get up and walk across the kitchen; I would...

Zurich, Switzerland, (SPX) Aug 23, 2006 Scientists have unveiled a new technology that could lead to video displays that faithfully reproduce a fuller range of colors than current models, giving such a life-like viewing experience that it could be hard to go back to your old TV. The invention, based on fine-tuning light using microscopic artificial muscles, could turn into competitively priced consumer products in eight years, the scientists say. In ordinary displays such as TV tubes, flat-screen LCDs, or plasma screens, each pixel is composed of three light-emitting elements, one for each of the fundamental colors red, green, and...

Stem cells taken from human fat can be transformed into smooth muscle cells, offering a way to treat many kinds of heart disease, gastrointestinal and bladder ills, US researchers reported yesterday. While the experiment does not quite offer a way to turn a pot belly into a flat stomach, the researchers said the transformed cells contracted and relaxed just like smooth muscle cells. These cells help the heart beat and blood flow, push food through the digestive system and make bladders fill and empty, the researchers reported. Their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is...

SAN FRANCISCO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday his movie-star celebrity and his boundless enthusiasm for all things California make him a great international salesman for the state's products and services. Speaking to the Commonwealth Club of California at the Herbst Theater, the governor said he will go anywhere to tout California's wares, "to go out there and tell our story" to buyers in any nation. "They want our products, they need our environmental know-how ... and our state-of-the-art technology." Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides' campaign Wednesday issued a pre-emptive memo outlining Schwarzenegger's foreign-trade failures: fewer exports now than in...

The New York Police Department is adding some muscle to its car fleet: the 2006 Dodge Charger, whose 1969 model is best remembered for outrunning a hapless sheriff in "The Dukes of Hazzard." The department plans to buy 15 police versions of the car for a pilot program that will begin this summer, officials said Thursday. In a recent analysis by Michigan State Police, Chargers equipped with a V-8 engine had the quickest acceleration (6.52 seconds to 60 mph) and fastest lap time (150 mph) of any police vehicle tested.

OAKLAND, Calif. - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation Monday authorizing the completion of a new eastern span of the San Francisco Bay Bridge, ending a months-long stalemate over how to pay the spiraling costs of the project. The law protects the popular, but costly suspension design originally selected for the bridge, which the Republican governor once advocated ditching for a less expensive approach. It also finances most construction cost overruns by raising tolls on nearly every other bridge in the San Francisco Bay area. Schwarzenegger praised the bipartisan cooperation that produced the bridge plan and called for a similar approach...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Tucked deep in the August 2005 issue of Muscle & Fitness magazine, past the photographs of men with chiseled muscles and stories such as "How I Built the World's Biggest Chest," is a glossy, two-page article proclaiming "It's Now Or Never!" The article details the bodybuilding industry's efforts to block state and federal regulations on nutritional supplements. It also proclaims the support of a powerful spokesman, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The story describes how Schwarzenegger attended a private meeting with bodybuilding executives at the Arnold Classic in March to vow a united front in the battle...

Published 2 May 2005. doi:10.1084/jem2019iti4 © Rockefeller University Press, 0022-1007 $8.00 JEM, Volume 201, Number 9, 1353-1353 Turning fat into muscle Stem cells from fat tissue have the potential to become muscle, bone, or fat, according to a study by Rodriguez and colleagues on page 1397. These stem cells rescued the production of the muscle protein dystrophin in a mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a fatal muscle wasting disease of children. The authors think that these cells may eventually be promising for treatment of children with this deadly, and thus far untreatable, disease. DMD is caused by a...

The AFL-CIO's $45 million effort to unseat President Bush is driven by an issue that unions care passionately about, but many voters have never heard of: the makeup of the National Labor Relations Board. Labor leaders say that in recent months the current board has made hard-hitting decisions that favor employers. And a Bush appointment last December increased to three the number of Republicans on the five-member NLRB, a change unions say could profoundly hurt organized workers for years. Since then, two major board decisions, on graduate students and nonunion workers' rights, have been the focus of criticism from labor...

Somewhere in Germany is a baby Superman, born in Berlin with bulging arm and leg muscles. Not yet 5, he can hold seven-pound weights with arms extended, something many adults cannot do. He has muscles twice the size of other kids his age and half their body fat. DNA testing showed why: The boy has a genetic mutation that boosts muscle growth. The discovery, reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, represents the first documented human case of such a mutation. Many scientists believe the find could eventually lead to drugs for treating people with muscular dystrophy and other...

The exercises described herein are bona-fide strength-gaining, muscle building exercises, all of which require no equipment and can be performed virtually anywhere at any time. You could do them all at once, which would take approximately thirty five minutes, or you could spread them out throughout the work day....

Amazon shows that Arnold has even authored an encyclopedia of weighlifting. It's about time California's public employee unions were forced to armwrestle with somebody other than a Wally Cox clone. They're bleeding us dry. We need somebody with muscle to terminate that.

Europe's dreams of muscle dashed The EU's hopes of becoming a defence superpower are looking less realistic, writes Ian Black. Friday December 6, 2002 Americans were not at all amused a couple of years ago when a respected thinktank published a pamphlet analysing how the European Union should forge the common defence policies it hopes could help it play a bigger role on the world stage. The cover of the pamphlet was a clever pastiche of the iconic image of battle-weary US marines raising the stars and stripes on Iwo Jima, the Pacific island captured from the Japanese during bloody...

Reprinted from ScienceDaily Magazine ...Source:             University Of Texas Southwestern Medical Center At Dallas Date Posted:    Thursday, August 15, 2002Web Address:   http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/08/020815072837.htm Protein Transforms Sedentary Muscles Into Exercised Muscles, Researchers Report DALLAS – Aug. 15, 2002 – Researchers have discovered a second protein found in skeletal muscle that can transform sedentary muscles into energy-producing, exercised muscles. Researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and Harvard Medical School reported in a study in today's issue of Nature that when the protein PGC-1Q is genetically introduced in mice, easily fatigued type II muscle fibers are transformed into fatigue-resistant, mitochondria-rich, or energy-producing, type I muscle fibers...

Exercise pill a possibility It may be one day be possible to pop a pill to build up muscle tone without the need to take exercise. Scientists say they have discovered how to stimulate muscles in the way that exercise does. An inability to exercise complicates many chronic medical conditions and makes those conditions worse Dr Sanders Williams The breakthrough may offer a way to help bedridden or disabled people get some of the benefits of exercise. However, the researchers are adamant that they are not setting out to create an exercise pill for couch potatoes. The crucial chemical is...