Free Republic

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (Aug. 20, 2005) -- Members of the Camp Lejeune’s Environmental Management Division joined a group of Boy Scouts from the base’s Troop 490 and Jacksonville’s Troop 597 to take part in an environmental awareness project aboard the base Aug. 20. As the final stage in becoming an Eagle Scout, Daniel Griffith, the project leader, designed, organized and executed the mission in an effort to increase public awareness of the dangers of pollution in regards to storm drains and water run-off. The project has created publicity on the subject through the utilization of mass media...

The Harvard Civil Rights Project did Californians an enormous favor in March when it released a report establishing that high-school dropout rates in the state were more than double what school bureaucrats claimed. ... If anything made plain the insincerity of the teachers union-dominated education establishment in trying to help schools improve, it was this proof that the establishment fudged the numbers. That's why it's so dismaying to see the Harvard group throw its weight behind the educrats' continuing crusade to undermine the centerpiece of California school reforms: making passage of a comprehensive exit exam a condition for a high...

President Ronald Reagan loved to rail against Congress' pork-barrel spending. But critics say that didn't stop Congress from earmarking $2.3 million for landscaping on the freeway that bears his name, one item among the $24 billion worth of special projects tacked onto the transportation bill signed Wednesday by President Bush. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who opposed the bill with four other senators, said the amount directed to special projects was "egregious." And he singled out Simi Valley's long-awaited landscaping project along Highway 118. "I wonder what Ronald Reagan would say?" McCain asked about the fiscally conservative president. In the city...

Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight The Stars before him from the Field of Night, Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light Portland, Oregon -- So begins The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, one of the best-known poems in the world and perhaps the most famous piece of Persian literature. The several hundred quatrains that make up this enduring 11th century work have been translated into dozens of languages and inspired countless readers and scholars with their beauty. At least nine editions of The Rubaiyat are currently in print...

Under criticism for missing a rare chance to help secure $400 million for a coveted car-pool lane on the 405 Freeway, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger stepped up Wednesday and promised to support the project -- if Van Nuys Rep. Howard Berman can deliver the federal money. Schwarzenegger came through none too soon for Berman, a Democrat, who has been lambasting the governor for failing to commit to the state's 20 percent in matching funds, which are needed to get the project eligible for consideration in the $300 billion federal highway bill now being negotiated on Capitol Hill. "We support your effort...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A company that sought state approval for a major development deal on the city's waterfront made substantial campaign contributions to politicians who controlled the project's fate, a newspaper reported Saturday. Campaign finance records show that Mills Corp., which long has lobbied to build a $210 million retail and sports complex on Piers 27-31, contributed at least $53,250 to Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer and state Controller Steve Westly in the months before and after they endorsed the project, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Westly and Bustamante, who sit on the three-member California...

The Genographic ProjectPublic participation, including yours, is critical to the Genographic Project's success. Here's how you can get involved: Purchasing a Public Participation Kit will fund important research around the world—and open the door to the ancient past of your own genetic background. With a simple and painless cheek swab you can sample your own DNA. You'll submit the sample through our secure, private, and completely anonymous system, then log on to the project Web site to track your personal results online. This is not a genealogy test and you won't learn about your great grandparents. You will learn,...

An effort to create the first computer simulation of the entire human brain, right down to the molecular level, was launched on Monday. The “Blue Brain” project, a collaboration between IBM and a Swiss university team, will involve building a custom-made supercomputer based on IBM’s Blue Gene design. The hope is that the virtual brain will help shed light on some aspects of human cognition, such as perception, memory and perhaps even consciousness. It will be the first time humans will be able to observe the electrical code our brains use to represent the world, and to do so in...

One of the adolescent things about liberals is that they won’t accept consequences of their actions, but will hold adults, Conservatives, to answer. This is becoming more obvious every year. The Minuteman Movement is spreading, as it should. And their mission and acceptance is becoming more obvious with every month! California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has said that he would not obstruct the Movement’s arrival in California. For this he takes heat. Now, Texas Governor Rick Perry says about the same thing for the Movement’s coming to Texas. For this, he, too, is taking heat. One of the things Americans respect...

LAS VEGAS - The founder of the Minuteman Project rolled into the Sin City on Sunday. Jim Gilchrist, however, didn't come to gamble or get a lap dance. He came to deliver his oft-repeated anti-illegal immigration message. He also spelled out his version of hitting the jackpot: deport the millions of illegal aliens occupying the United States back to Mexico. Send them back by plane or bus, give them money and do it civilly, he said. ''That's what I have in mind,'' Gilchrist told about 200 people who cheered him at the downtown Las Vegas convention center. He made his...

WASHINGTON - FBI Director Robert Mueller told lawmakers Tuesday he still doesn't know how much it will cost to complete the bureau's computer overhaul, already well over budget and behind schedule. He also refused to state publicly the cost of the initial phase of the Sentinel system, the planned successor to a failed project that was supposed to greatly improve management of terrorism and other criminal cases. "There are certain sensitivities involved," Mueller told the Senate Appropriations Committee's Commerce, Justice and Science subcommittee, explaining that the FBI soon would invite contractors to compete for the work. The FBI has yet...

The researchers behind the Screensaver-Lifesaver project – which uses the ‘idle time’ of millions of computers worldwide to screen for anti-cancer drugs – are now turning their attention to fighting pancreatic cancer. The Screensaver-Lifesaver project is run out of the National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) Centre for Computational Drug Discovery under the direction of Professor Graham Richards, Chairman of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford. In a recent joint statement with the NFCR and Dr. Daniel Von Hoff of the Center for Targeted Cancer Therapies at the University of Arizona and the Translational Genomics Research Institute,...

In The Arizona Minutemen II, I mentioned that Arizona’s Minuteman Project is restoring the concept of Militia in its proper light, and that the mission of any Militia is that – made up of everyday constituents – Militias of everyday constituents have always been the first line of defense. Adding power to this concept is the resonant idea of putting more cops on the street, the official equivalent to constituent-manned Militia. Sheer numbers with legal authority both have. President Clinton enunciated this policy when he promised 100,000 new officers on the street, though it never became a reality, even as...

Editor's note: Each week, WorldNetDaily White House correspondent Les Kinsolving asks the tough questions almost no one else will ask. And each week, WorldNetDaily brings you the transcripts of those dialogues with the president and his spokesman. If you'd like to suggest a question for the White House, submit it to WorldNetDaily's exclusive interactive forum MR. PRESIDENT! By Les Kinsolving At today's White House news briefing, WND asked presidential press secretary Scott McClellan about the president's view that those involved in the Minuteman Project on the U.S.-Mexican border are vigilantes and confronted the spokesman with Border Patrol comments about agents'...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The governors of four Western states announced their support Monday for the building of 1,300 miles of power lines that would carry electricity from the coal fields of Wyoming to energy-starved Southern California. In a memorandum of agreement, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal established a compact that will try to speed government and regulatory approvals for the power lines and the plants that would generate the electricity. "There's a growing recognition in the West that what was once viewed exclusively as a...

As Sempra Energy broke ground on its $800 million liquefied natural gas receiving terminal in Baja California this week, the state's legislature launched an official inquiry into the project. The investigation, which began yesterday, is led by Guillermo Aldrete Hass, the leader of the legislature's foreign affairs committee. He said he will ask federal officials to suspend the permits for the project while the investigation continues and legal challenges remain unresolved. "There hasn't been transparency from the beginning to the end," Aldrete said. "We want to know the economic and environmental impacts – both negative and positive." Of particular concern,...

Free Staters enable surprise victory over educrats in New Hampshire town It may not change the world, but a small victory for freedom in New Hampshire may indicate interesting things to come in the Live Free or Die state. March 8 saw local elections across New Hampshire which, as usual went both well and badly for freedom depending on where you live. A small but ultra-active group of libertarian migrants appears to have made the difference in at least one controversial election, in the southwestern town of Keene (pop 23,000). To the glee of taxpayer groups and the fury of...

TUCSON - A Mexican national with an extensive criminal history in the United States, who said he is a member of a Mexican gang, was taken into custody Sunday by agents from the U.S. Border Patrol's Naco Station. Arrested was Eulogio Soriano-Vasquez, 30, who was apprehended after crawling under the border fence west of Naco. He was taken into custody with a small group of illegal immigrants who tried to enter the United States around 6 a.m. During his processing, it was discovered Soriano had been arrested for the possession and sale of cocaine in Palm Beach, Fla., in March...

"Revolt of the Porcupines" This is the latest media coverage of the Free State Project, our movement which is working to bring 20,000 liberty lovers to New Hampshire, reduce government, etc.

Maize reveals traces of old breeding project Emma Marris Gene suggests ancient culture selected patterns in its corn. Teosinte grass (left) compared to "reconstructed" primitive maize, created by crossing teosinte with Argentine pop corn. © The Doebley Lab The people of Mesoamerica are largely responsible for the golden corn we grow today, having domesticated tough teosinte grass thousands of years ago and bred it into modern maize. Researchers have now located the gene responsible for some of the traits that the Mesoamericans were selecting. The discovery should help scientists understand how plants develop, and reveals just how strict the ancient...