Free Republic

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology. The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering. The German-born Pontiff said that while some concerns may be valid it was vital that the international community based its policies on science rather than the dogma of the environmentalist movement. His remarks will be made...

...The crisis was thus an accident waiting to happen. If it had not been triggered by the mispricing of securitized subprime mortgages, it would have been produced by eruptions in some other market. As I have noted elsewhere, history has not dealt kindly with protracted periods of low risk premiums. The root of the current crisis, as I see it, lies back in the aftermath of the Cold War, when the economic ruin of the Soviet Bloc was exposed with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Following these world-shaking events, market capitalism quietly, but rapidly, displaced much of the discredited...

The Norm Coleman campaign takes Al Franken seriously, at least seriously enough to do their homework on the former comedian, author, and talk-radio host. If Franken wins the nomination from Michael Cerisi to challenge Coleman in the general election, he will not find Coleman unprepared. The campaign has already readied its first ad, and this one -- on Franken's attempts to triangulate on Iraq -- will leave a big mark.

...There has been appropriate international outrage over the treatment of Gibbons, from virtually everyone except American “feminists.” Multiple Muslim groups in the U.K. have condemned the sentence. Even the popular little boy in Mrs. Gibbons’ class who suggested the name for the bear came to her defense, explaining that he named the bear after himself.

12:35 p.m. - The orbiter is rolling to the left in the first of several steep banking maneuvers. This series of rolls helps bleed off excess energy and slow the orbiter's speed. The atmospheric pressure is growing around Discovery and the orbiter's aerosurfaces are taking over control of the vehicle. 12:30 p.m. - Discovery is beginning to encounter the effects of the atmosphere, a point called "entry interface." Now flying at about 16,000 miles per hour, the orbiter is angled upward with wings level. The shuttle is set to touch down in just over 30 minutes.

ROME, Aug 29, 2007 (AFP) - Pilgrims on the Vatican's fledgling airline were stunned to discover that holy water from Lourdes, in southwest France, cannot be taken on board for security reasons, media reports said Wednesday. French security officers seized the liquid -- reputed to have miracle-giving qualities -- under a Europe-wide anti-terrorism rule that forbids more than 100 millilitres (3.5 British ounces) in each passenger's carry-on baggage. One pilgrim was so distraught that he drank the holy water on the spot, rather than surrender it to the authorities, Italy's Il Corriere della Sera newspaper reported. Holy water from Lourdes...

I would think that FreeRepublic is primarily a database driven web application. When someone creates a post some table or tables are update with 5 basic pieces of information: The post being replied TO The user posting the message (FROM) The contents of the post A timestamp documenting when the post was created Given these bits of information how hard would it be to simply not allow posting a duplicate of 1, 2, and 3 within a certain time threshold of 4 (maybe 1 minute)? Why not spend the hour it would take to implement this and save everyone the...

The United States has 90 guns for every 100 citizens, making it the most heavily armed society in the world, a report released on Tuesday said. U.S. citizens own 270 million of the world's 875 million known firearms, according to the Small Arms Survey 2007 by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies. About 4.5 million of the 8 million new guns manufactured worldwide each year are purchased in the United States, it said.

New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a powerful member of the Democratic leadership, said Friday the Senate should not confirm another U.S. Supreme Court nominee under President Bush “except in extraordinary circumstances.” “We should reverse the presumption of confirmation,” Schumer told the American Constitution Society convention in Washington. “The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito.” Schumer said there were four lessons to be learned from Alito and Roberts: Confirmation hearings are meaningless, a nominee’s record should be weighed more heavily than rhetoric,...

September 12, 2006 -- WELL, here it is, five years late, but here just the same: an apology from an Arab-American for 9/11. No, I didn't help organize the killers or contribute in any way to their terrible cause. However, I was one of millions of Arab-Americans who did the unspeakable on 9/11: nothing. The only time I raised my voice in protest against these men who killed thousands of innocents in the name of Allah was behind closed doors, among the safety of friends and family.... Well, I'm sick of saying the truth only in private - that Arabs...

Saddam Hussein has been forced to watch South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, according to the film's co-creator Matt Stone. The former Iraqi leader is portrayed in the movie as a homosexual who is in a relationship with the devil, and Stone claims the prisoner is being forced to watch it "repeatedly" as he is held by US Marines. The South Park movie was banned on release in Iraq seven years ago. Stone reveals: "I have it on pretty good information from the Marines on detail in Iraq that they showed him the movie. That's really adding insult to injury....

I may disagree with what Ann Coulter says but I will defend to the death Oscar Wilde's right to say it. Describing the same kind of widow that set Coulter off, he quipped: "Her hair turned quite gold from grief." Wondering what life in America would be like if Coulter used a stiletto instead of a sledgehammer is a tempting but futile excursion into dreamland. Suppose, for example, she was confronted, like Jennie Churchill, with a pompous young man who boasted that his financée's virtue was "priced above rubies." Without missing a beat, Jennie said, "Try diamonds." But if the...

Conventional wisdom insists that the immigration issue remains so polarizing, so explosively divisive – especially among Republicans – that Congress will make no progress toward meaningful reform before the November elections. New polling data, however, suggests the emergence of an overwhelming consensus behind a common sense approach to this painful, perplexing problem that makes Congressional action not only possible, but imperative. On two of the three key elements of reform, public opinion is nearly unanimous. Americans of every ethnicity and every political perspective agree that we need both stronger efforts to block illegal crossings at the border, and more vigorous...

Carlin, Coulter in 'Tonight' smackdown? Comedian, author to share couch on Leno show Wednesday, June 14, 2006; Posted: 12:57 p.m. EDT (16:57 GMT) LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- "Tonight" host Jay Leno might want to consider wearing referee stripes on Wednesday's show when Ann Coulter and George Carlin are his guests. Coulter, the acid-tongued conservative with a new book out, and Carlin, the quick-witted, antiestablishment comedian who's in the voice cast for the new animated film "Cars," were booked at separate times for the NBC late-nighter, a spokeswoman said Monday. But the duo's meeting could produce serious fireworks for "Tonight,"...

The most frequently asked question I receive from non-Jews about Jews is, why are Jews so liberal? The question is entirely legitimate since Jews (outside of Israel) are indeed overwhelmingly liberal and disproportionately left of liberal as well. For example, other than blacks, no American group votes so lopsidedly for the Democratic Party. And the question is further sharpened given that traditional Jewish values are not leftist. That is why the more religiously involved the Jew, the less likely he is to be on the Left. The old saw, "There are two types of Jews -- those who believe Judaism...

ASSOCIATED PRESS SASABE, Mexico -- When Pedro Lopez Vazquez crossed illegally into the United States last week, he was not heading north to look for a job. He already had one. His future employer even paid $1,000 for a smuggler to help Vazquez make his way from the central Mexican city of Puebla to Aspen, Colo. "We're going to Colorado to work in carpentry because we have a friend who was going to give us a job," Vazquez said. Vazquez, 41, was interviewed along the Arizona border after being deported twice by the U.S. Border Patrol. He said he would...

"I was really impressed with [DeMille's version] when I saw it as a young boy, because it was such a wonderful cinematic extravaganza ... Just because there has been this huge, colossal canvas painted with one man's vision doesn't mean we can't retell it."

Welcome to the most fun thread on FreeRepublic

Given Iran's nuclear history and support for terrorism, the United States is particularly concerned about Iran providing nuclear technology to other countries, the State Department said on Thursday. Spokesman Adam Ereli was responding to Iranian media reports quoting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying that Iran was "ready to transfer nuclear know-how" to fellow Islamic states. The comment, made during a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the U.N. summit in New York, comes amid a serious dispute between the West and Iran over Tehran's nuclear intentions.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has warned the US to back away from the possibility of military action against Iran over its nuclear programme. His comments come a day after President Bush reiterated that force remained an option but only as a last resort. Iran has resumed what it says is a civilian nuclear research programme but which the West fears could be used to develop nuclear arms. Germany, France and the UK have led efforts to end the crisis peacefully. Let's take the military option off the table. We have seen it doesn't work Gerhard Schroeder Schroeder launches poll bid...