Free Republic

So, Just happened to look at some historical polling today for the GA Governors race, and I decided to just pull polling groups that have done repeated polling over time.. assuming each of their polls were using consistent methodology across all their polls... And pretty much shows an entire cycle where nothing has moved much.. yes some show some mild trending over the last 4 months but for the most part, this race appears to be about as close to static as one could expect... I wonder how many 10s if not 100s of millions have been spent in GA...

This morning, I realized that everything is about to change. No matter how I vote, no matter what I say, something evil has invaded our nation, and our lives are never going to be the same. I have been confused by the hostility of family and friends. I look at people I have known all my life — so hate-filled that they agree with opinions they would never express as their own. I think that I may well have entered the Twilight Zone. You can't justify this insanity. We have become a nation that has lost its collective mind! We...

"We Truly Don't Know What It Is" --Mystery Milky-Way Spectrum of Light Observed 'Not Produced By Any Known Emission' April 17, 2018   "We use special telescopes to catch X-ray light in the sky, and while looking at these X-rays, the telescopes noticed an unexpected feature and captured a spectrum of light, which is not produced by any known atomic emission," said University of Miami astrophysicist Nico Cappelluti. "This emission line is now called the 3.5 kiloelectron volt (keV). One interpretation of this emission line is that it's produced by the decay of dark matter." "This 3.5 keV emission line is...

My friend was even annoyed by praises showered upon Billy Graham in response to his death. Though he would deny it, my friend has a deep hatred for whites. And yet I have witnessed God use him to bless people. I've come to realize that neither facts nor truth can penetrate my friend erroneously viewing white Americans as blacks' nemesis. Therefore, I am praying for God to heal his vengeful heart against white Americans. On the bright side, I caught an interview with black Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, a hero of mine. Justice Thomas said he is worn down...

Random thoughts on the passing scene: It is amazing how many people still fall for the argument that, if life is unfair, the answer is to turn more money and power over to politicians. Since life has always been unfair, for thousands of years and in countries around the world, where does that lead us? I am so old that I can remember when sex was private. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” applied to everybody. However fascinated the U.S. Supreme Court may be with the concept of “diversity,” every one of the 9 justices has a degree from one of the...

Recently there was an interesting article about what foreigners thought of American culture - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3090848/posts Just thought I’d share my observations of times I lived in Europe. Here's a scattering of what I discovered. All payments are electronic. Your salary, your bills, your insurance, your rent or mortgage, etc. You constantly have to check online to see where you are financially. Hospitals are stark and bare. No beautification or art work. But hospital rooms have windows you can open and patients can buy beer in the cafeteria. Electrical bills are paid in advance. You are billed for electrical usage that...

The Mrs. just spelled me off from poll watching duty one hour ago. Our precinct had logged in slightly less than 300 voters by 11 a.m., about normal for a mid-term election according to our local judges. Absentee requests for the county were 6500 as of Monday versus 3000 for a normal election. One worrisome note: My daughter's did not arrive even though she mailed it two weeks ago. I'll be on closing duty tonight.>p>Official state results will be available at the link. Pls post your observations, including the part of Pennsylvania.

My sister and B-I-L arrived yesterday afternoon from Houston. My sister and B-I-L along with close to 20 other people met up in Senator Cornyn's office. He was courteous, spent time talking to all of them. He also confirmed he did NOT like the health care bill and shared he was proud people were getting involved. My sister stated it was a very positive meeting. They then went over to Al Green's office.They were the only ones who went to Green's office. While she did say the lady was friendly she also was asked what district my sister was from....

Mrs. Ozella McHargue of St. John, Ind. Was a lady with real holiday spirit, even after her spirit had left her body. When she passed away, she treated her family and guests to a holly Jolly funeral. McHargue came up with the idea after being diagnosed with cancer. She said she didn’t want depressing organ music at her funeral - she wanted songs like “Silver Bells” and “Rudolph the Red nosed Reindeer.” She got her wish. The funeral home was decked with holly, wreaths, mistletoe, poinsettias and a Christmas tree decorated with ornaments from friends and family. McHargue was placed...

Listening to the battle over "immigration reform", I wonder if there's still time for common sense ?

One of the most irksome traits of columnists or media gurus is that they never change their mind. Would Rush Limbaugh ever admit "Iraq was a dumb idea"? Columnists occupy valuable real estate, yet dwell in a cave of certitude. Having written this column over these past 16 years, I, too, may have fallen into the same trap. So let me venture into uncertain ground by admitting that I've changed my mind about a few things. I won't suggest that these changes will affect the course of our society, but I thought I'd acknowledge them anyway. Cable television news: In...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13, 2006 -- About 50 authors, including current and former servicemen and women as well as family members, gathered in the Library of Congress's Thomas Jefferson Building last evening to sign copies of a 377-page book of their observations and experiences in the global war on terrorism. Navy Reserve Cmdr. Kathleen Toomey Jabs, 40, whose Navy officer husband deployed to Iraq in 2004, autographs a copy of “Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front, in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families.” For the book, Jabs wrote a fictional account about a military mother leaving her 4-year-old...

CAMP AL QAIM, Iraq, June 9, 2006 – The security situation in Iraq is like a relay race. Coalition forces have the baton for the first leg. They pass it to the Iraqi army, who in turn pass the baton to the Iraqi police. In Anbar province, the race is a bit slower than in other portions of Iraq. But progress is being made. Training the Iraqi security forces is the most important mission for coalition personnel, who realize that capable security forces will quicken their return home. Iraqi soldiers and police understand this and are very receptive to coalition...

Concerns are growing that 50% or more of the KH-11 optical and Lacrosse imaging radar satellites that make up the core of secret U.S. space reconnaissance operations will die before smaller, more modern replacements can be launched. A new program, however, may be forming to stem this trend. Fears over the loss of future secret imaging capability are growing as the need for detailed pictures of Iranian and Chinese weapons developments is increasing. U.S. intelligence officers have been concerned for years that China, especially, is trying thwart satellite intelligence by using aggressive camouflage techniques, Central Intelligence Agency managers say. As...

Democrats on the House Science Committee said Monday they want the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a deputy undersecretary of Commerce removed from their jobs due to their gross mismanagement of a major weather satellite program. Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), the committee's ranking minority member, and Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) ranking member on the environment technology and standards subcommittee, said NOAA's Administrator, Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr. (Ret.) and Gen. John J. Kelly Jr., Deputy Undersecretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, should be fired. At issue is the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System,...

The Army has learned a great deal in Iraq and Afghanistan about the conduct of counterinsurgency operations, and we must continue to learn all that we can from our experiences in those countries. The insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan were not, in truth, the wars for which we were best prepared in 2001; however, they are the wars we are fighting and they clearly are the kind of wars we must master. America's overwhelming conventional military superiority makes it unlikely that future enemies will confront us head on. Rather, they will attack us asymmetrically, avoiding our strengths-firepower, maneuver, technology-and come...

Budget cuts and poor management may be jeopardizing the future of our eyes in orbit -- America's fleet of environmental satellites, vital tools for forecasting hurricanes, protecting water supplies and predicting global warming. "The system of environmental satellites is at risk of collapse," said Richard A. Anthes, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. "Every year that goes by without the system being addressed is a problem." 'Program in Crisis' Anthes chairs a National Academy of Sciences committee that advises the federal government on developing and operating environmental satellites. In a report issued last year, the committee warned that...

Products based on NASA Earth observations and a new Internet-based decision tool are providing information to help land and water managers combat tamarisk (saltcedar), an invasive plant species damaging precious water supplies in the western United States. This decision tool, called the Invasive Species Forecasting System (ISFS), is being used at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Institute of Invasive Species Science in Fort Collins, Colo. It is the result of combining USGS science and NASA Earth observations, software engineering and high- performance computing expertise. "The ISFS combines NASA satellite data with tens of thousands of field sampling measurements, which...

A distant eruption of high-energy gamma rays is evidence for a black hole swallowing another dense object called a neutron star, astronomers announced today. A neutron star is a stellar corpse with a mass equal to a few suns packed into a space no more than 12 miles across. Black holes are even denser objects, so dense that matter and even light can't escape once inside their spheres of invisible influence. Scientists have long suspected collisions between these objects are common. Other recent bursts have looked similar, but observations from NASA's orbiting Swift satellite and other telescopes, recorded July 24...

The disintegration of the huge Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica was an unprecedented event in the past 10,000 years of geological history, a study has found. Research by scientists from Hamilton College in New York, based on the scrutiny of six ice cores from the vicinity of the ice shelf, found that a collapse of this size had not happened during the period since the end of the last Ice Age. The piece of ice which sheered away from Larsen B into the sea in 2002 was roughly the size of Luxembourg. The study, published in the journal Nature,...