Free Republic

Everyone should be thankful for how far we've come. - Morgan Housel - Financials 1. U.S. life expectancy at birth was 39 years in 1800, 49 years in 1900, 68 years in 1950, and 79 years today. The average newborn today can expect to live an entire generation longer than his great-grandparents could. 2. A flu pandemic in 1918 infected 500 million people and killed as many as 100 million. In his book The Great Influenza, John Barry describes the illness as if "someone were hammering a wedge into your skull just behind the eyes, and body aches so intense...

The European Parliament has reaffirmed its legislative value by reversing the potentially disruptive restrictions in the draft directive for protecting laboratory animals. Raise a glass to the elected members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Without their intervention last week, the European Union (EU) directive on the protection of laboratory animals would have continued its tortured path through legislative procedures in a form that was thoroughly toxic to biomedical research. The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, began working on the directive back in 2002.The draft that finally emerged last November was singularly uninformed. It should have balanced the undisputed duty...

COLORADO SPRINGS - An Iraqi mayor stood before troops lined up on the lawn at Fort Carson on Friday morning and said only two words in English. But those two words brought the crowd to its feet. "Thank you." It was a telling gesture from Tal Afar Mayor Najim Al Jibouri, who spoke for about 20 minutes in his native tongue praising the 3rd Armored Cavalry for saving his city from certain ruin.