Free Republic

Silent movie classic The Covered Wagon shows the gentle side of men as protectors and lovers of women and male energy let loose on entering and conquering a new frontier. How much of these qualities are present in President Trump? He breaks through bullshit. But his weaknesses are huge. How will history view his presidency?

A man who faced amputation after he broke a leg while rock climbing spoke today of a revolutionary new stem cell technique which fused it back together again. Andrew Kent's right leg broke in five places when a large boulder fell on him as he climbed with his son in the Langdale Pikes in the Lake District in April. He was taken to the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle where he underwent three operations to pin the bones back together.

WASHINGTON - The Rev. Robert Drinan, a Jesuit who — over the objections of his superiors — was the only Roman Catholic priest elected as a voting member of Congress, died Sunday. Drinan, 86, had suffered from pneumonia and congestive heart failure during the previous 10 days, according to a statement by Georgetown University which said he died at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington. "His death was peaceful, and he was surrounded by his family," said the Rev. John Langan, rector of the Georgetown University Jesuit Community where Drinan lived. An internationally known human-rights advocate, Drinan was elected on an...

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert J. Sandoval, who was one of the city's first openly gay prosecutors, has died. He was 56. Sandoval died Feb. 28 of a heart attack while being treated for leukemia at City of Hope Hospital, said Bill Martin, his partner of 23 years. Sandoval joined the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office in 1978 as part of an effort by then-City Attorney Burt Pines to recruit more gays and minorities. He was elected a commissioner of the Municipal Court in 1984 and became a Superior Court commissioner in 1997. Then-Gov. Gray Davis appointed him to...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Trailblazing journalist and author Shana Alexander, whose on-air verbal skirmishes with conservative James J. Kilpatrick on CBS' "60 Minutes" were so popular they were spoofed on "Saturday Night Live," died Thursday of cancer, her family confirmed. She was 79. Alexander died at an assisted living facility in Hermosa Beach, her niece Hannah Bentley said Thursday night. Alexander wrote for numerous magazines including Newsweek and National Geographic and was the first female staff writer employed by Life magazine. She was also the first female editor at McCall's magazine. But she was best known for her "Point-Counterpoint" segments...

Nations, like men, have destinies. They choose to fulfill them or fail. Free Will, not fate, makes choices at every crossroads in life for men and nations alike. President George W. Bush stated the vision for the United States as “our generational commitment to the advance of freedom”. That vision may be part of a greater destiny for our Nation. America has a Munificent Destiny, if we, The People, choose it. America’s Munificent Destiny serves us for a century, perhaps longer. America’s Munificent Destiny is to use our phenomenal aggregation of wealth, power, technology and culture with pragmatic generosity. The...

STANDARD VIEW 1. Recession causes businessmen to be cautious. 2. Talented leaders make the population happy. 3. A rising stock market makes people increasingly optimistic. 4. Scandals make people outraged. 5. War makes people angry. 6. Happy music makes people smile. 7. Nuclear bomb testing makes people nervous. SOCIONOMIC VIEW 1. Cautious businessmen cause recession. 2. A happy population makes leaders appear talented. 3. Increasingly optimistic people make the stock market rise. 4. Outraged people seek out scandals. 5. Fearful and angry people make war. 6. People who want to smile choose happy music. 7. Nervous people test nuclear bombs....

A breakthrough in using donor pancreas cells in patients' livers means an end to several injections a day. For the first time, a diabetic patient in Britain has been completely cured by a revolutionary transplant operation. Richard Lane, 61, has been able to abandon the daily insulin injections he has endured for the past 28 years thanks to transplants of pancreas cells from three donors. He is the third patient to be treated at King’s College Hospital in London using a technique developed at the University of Alberta in Canada by a Leeds-born specialist, James Shapiro. The two earlier cases...

DAYTON, Ohio — Twenty years ago, Neil Armstrong made “one giant leap for mankind.” Since then, manned space exploration has been one giant leap forward, two giant leaps backward. When the movie 2001 appeared in 1968, the idea of 10,000 people on the moon by 2001 was believable. All it would take was to continue the moon program already begun. Now we know there won’t be even 10 people on the moon by 2001. NASA doesn’t plan to go back to the moon until the 21st century. That’s disappointed many of us. As a child, I avidly read Flash Gordon...

Dogs may sniff out some cancers Prostate cancer affects thousands of men each year A pioneering technique using dogs to detect prostate cancer is being developed in Cambridgeshire. Researchers at Cambridge University have applied for funding to test their theory that a dog's sense of smell could provide a better early warning system for some cancers than modern science. They hope to train dogs to react to cancer cells in urine samples, revolutionising the screening process for conditions like prostate cancer. If the university gets funding it will ask professsional dog trainer Charlie Clarricoates, of Soham, Cambridgeshire, to carry out...