Free Republic

It took man only 20 centuries or so to give up trying to transmute base metals into gold. How long will it take us to stop trying to turn our rubbish into gold? As John Tierney put it 23 years ago in the New York Times, “Recycling Is Garbage.” It may make sense to recycle a few items for the savings in carbon emissions — paper, cardboard, and metals such as aluminum from cans. Recycling a ton of these items saves about three tons of carbon dioxide. Glass, plastic, rubber, all the other stuff? Not really. We used to send...

For those that enjoy Magic.

As was revealed in a breathtaking New York Times opinion piece today, many of Barack Obama's top advisers feel alienated from him. There is a sense within the White House that President Obama's theory of government is that "he is the government". Apparently, President Obama has personalized the presidency to such an extent that it is now seen as more about the man than about the position. Certainly that is not how the American Founding Fathers viewed the presidency. The author of this article, David Rothkopf, characterizes the president as a poor manager who is also aloof and a poor...

Jillette: "I sat on TV, while my hero Tommy Smothers yelled in my face how pissed off he was at me for appearing on Glenn Beck. It broke my heart."

From Tommy Smothers.

Did Penn & Teller Set a World Record for Most Falsehoods in One Show? Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League, has said, "Penn & Teller's Nazi-like assault on Catholicism that took place on August 27 will go down in history as one of the most vile, obscene programs ever aired in any nation." However, will the show also go down in history for airing the most number of lies, falsehoods, and misleading statements in a single half-hour show? Not counting credits, the guilty episode runs less than 26 minutes. Here's a lie-by-lie list of the falsehoods that Penn Jillette...

What do you get when a magician buys an A-frame house in the desert? A sprawling, brightly colored compound that looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. It has hidden rooms, fire poles, and a place where visitors must sign in and have their mugshot taken. The Slammer is the creation of Penn Jillette. It sits on 10 acres of land in the Las Vegas desert. The residence started out as an A-frame house and grew as the magician, one half of the act Penn and Teller, added on. It has covered parking, a recording studio, a home...

LAS VEGAS — “My whole libertarian approach comes out of being just a nutty f'ing peacenik,” magician Penn Jillette confides backstage at his show, a few hours before he is set to perform.

Because I wrote a book with "Atheist" in the subtitle and I go on political TV shows to hawk that book, well-groomed meat puppets frequently ask me why politicians like Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry are saying bugnutty Christian stuff. I have an idea why these politicians have gone all religious, but I haven't found a way to explain it in a sound bite, which is why I'm writing this. I think the whole problem comes down to the word "Christian" and what it has come to mean in my lifetime. Christian used to be a throwaway word. People didn't...

As a top adviser in a multinational financial services company, Susan Grant 59, was used to effortlessly juggling numbers, client details and other complex information in her head. So when she found her thoughts so muddled she couldn't remember if she needed to take the interstate north or south to drive home, she knew something was wrong. “I'd find myself talking to clients and unable to think of a word,” she recalled. “So I'd stop in the middle of a sentence — and then I couldn't remember the sentence itself.” A series of medical tests resulted in six diagnoses —...

Not only did Steve Schmidt tell Sam Stein of the Huffington Post that “gay marriage is a conservative cause,” but he went on to up the ante even more. Schmidt, who is famously known as a being a failure for John McCain and being jealous of Sarah Palin’s hair, launched a missile at the Republican Party, declaring that “it’s hip to be queer.” “More and more,” fired Schmidt, I hear conservatives are saying that opposition to gay marriage is good. But that’s a crock of crap! Conservatives need to wake up and smell what they’re shoveling! Metro sexual is a...

A minor incident in a barber’s shop last week has helped me to realise that I may no longer be gay. Not a fully fledged homo, anyway; perhaps not even a part-timer who helps the team out when it’s busy. It appears I may be going straight. I was in Tenterden, the Kentish village where I was brought up and to which I have lately returned, working at a nearby aerodrome as a helicopter pilot. I was waiting my turn for a chatty Latvian to apply the hot towels and razor. A handsome young dad entered with a small, fair-haired...

LOS ANGELES, CA, September 2, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In all of his 16 years defending the rights of Catholics, the President of the Catholic League has "never seen a more defamatory, obscene and vicious show on TV."  League President Bill Donohue was referring to the August 27 edition of the CBS/Showtime program Penn & Teller.  The half-hour show libeled the Catholic Church with impunity, blaming the Church for, as Donohue put it, "every evil in history." Show host Jillette said the "intolerance, greed, paranoia, hypocrisy and callous disregard for human suffering" was the hallmark of the Catholic Church. Others on...

"And not just atheists," said Bill Donohue during an August 31st Fox News interview. "I’m talking about people who are disaffected Catholics and Protestants who are mutineers within their own religion, trying to change things." It wasn't just "militant, dogmatic" atheists and "disaffected" Christians that the Catholic League president complained about either. Donohue also had a few choice words for magicians Penn & Teller whose Showtime series, Penn & Teller: Bullsh*t!, just ran an episode on the history of the Catholic Church. "This was the most Nazi-like assault,” Donohue said. “The most unrelenting half an hour of bashing I’ve ever...

I don’t speak for all Libertarians any more than Sean Penn speaks for all Democrats. I’m not even sure my LP membership card is up to date. I’ve voted Libertarian as long as I can remember but I don’t really remember much before the Clintons and the Bushes. Those clans made a lot of us bugnutty. When I go on Glenn’s show he calls me a Libertarian, I think that’s my only real credential. There are historical reasons and pragmatic reasons to be a Libertarian, but there are historic and pragmatic reasons to be a Democrat, a Republican or a...

I say, Thank God Penn & Teller reveal the workings of their magic tricks. We’re all used to it now, but when they first got going they caused a lot of angst and delicate hand-wringing among the brotherhood. No one will watch magic if they know how the tricks work! went the standard lamentation. But it wasn’t shouted too loudly. Sympathy for secrecy wasn’t exactly on the wane when the boys showed up, but complaints against violations were reflexive more than strident. Penn & TellerThis is because magic had fallen into the doldrums. There were a plethora of exaggerated hand-waving...

There are many things I want independence from -- incoming e-mail, the section of my wedding vows about monogamy, this bogus corporation I created to lower my taxes but now takes up all of my time, Sam Zell -- but foreign oil is not one of them. Foreign oil is my favorite kind of oil. It means other nations clog their beaches with ugly rigs, do dangerous work and suffer environmental disasters and I still get to cruise Sunset Boulevard in my yellow Mini Cooper convertible. Oil exploration is an industry America should look to expand right after alchemy research...

In God We Trust, a national political inter-faith advocacy group, has called on Sen. Barack Obama to condemn the message on a billboard in Denver, the site of next month’s Democratic National Convention. The billboard, alluding to a song by the late John Lennon of the Beatles, bears the message “Imagine No Religion” imprinted over what appears to be stained glass. It was paid for by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), which describes itself as a membership association of atheists and agnostics. According to a report in the Denver Post, the billboard will only stand through July and will...

This is hysterical...and extremely scary! CLICK HERE