Free Republic

Our bodies arsenal of antioxidant control mechanisms become less efficient as we get older. Supplementing with the amino acid taurine could be a strategy to combat the problem. The study described 24 women randomly divided into two groups. One group took three 500 mg capsules of taurine per day for 16 weeks (1.5 g per day). The other took corn starch. Markers of oxidative stress were analyzed in blood samples. One interesting result was an increase of almost 20% in levels of the antioxidant enzyme superoxide dismutase (SOD) in the group that received taurine, compared with a decrease of 3.5%...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in letters to seven governors, is reaffirming the need for members of their states’ Army and Air National Guards to get the mandatory COVID-19 vaccine or lose their Guard status.</p><p>In nearly identical letters signed late last week, Austin tells the governors that the virus “takes our service members out of the fight, temporarily or permanently, and jeopardizes our ability to meet mission requirements,” according to copies obtained Monday by The Associated Press.</p>

One of my favorite posters on free republic is sod poodle. When he/she posts, I always pause and read the thread, as it is always interesting and humorous. While doing a You Tube search for Ed Montana songs, I came across these two "Sod Poodle" songs, one by Ed Montana and the other by Carson Leverett. Apparently the Sod Poodles are an Amarillo, Texas baseball team. It is good to learn something new on most days. In honor of one of my favorite freepers, here are two Sod Poodle songs, one by Ed Montana, the other by Carson Leverett. Thanks,...

Bill Binney is the high-level NSA executive who created the agency’s mass surveillance program for digital information. A 32-year NSA veteran widely regarded as a “legend” within the agency, Binney was the senior technical director within the agency and managed thousands of NSA employees. Binney has been interviewed by virtually all of the mainstream media, including CBS, ABC, CNN, New York Times, USA Today, Fox News, PBS and many others. Last year, Binney held his thumb and forefinger close together, and said: We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state. But today, Binney told Washington’s Blog that the...

Earlier this month, Reuters revealed that a special division within the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has been using intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a mass database of telephone records to secretly identify targets for drug enforcement actions.In the wake of these revelations, a former prosecutor tells IPS he believes he and his colleagues may have been unwitting pawns in the federal government's effort to deceive defendants and the court system, thereby violating citizens' constitutional rights. "None of us had any idea whatsoever there was a secret DEA programme that instructed DEA agents to conceal the source," Patrick Nightingale, a...

Full title: NSA, DEA, IRS Lie About Fact That Americans Are Routinely Spied On By Our Government: Time For A Special Prosecutor It seems that every day brings a new revelation about the scope of the NSA’s heretofore secret warrantless mass surveillance programs. And as we learn more, the picture becomes increasingly alarming. Last week we discovered that the NSA shares information with a division of the Drug Enforcement Agency called the Special Operations Division (SOD). The DEA uses the information in drug investigations. But it also gives NSA data out to other agencies – in particular, the Internal Revenue...

A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans. Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges. "It is one thing to create special rules for national security," Gertner said. "Ordinary crime is entirely different. It sounds like they are phonying up...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans. Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.

Just like a comic book super hero, you could say that the enzyme superoxide dismutase (SOD1) has a secret identity. Since its discovery in 1969, scientists believed SOD1's only role was to protect living cells against damage from free radicals. Now, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have discovered that SOD1 protects cells by regulating cell energy and metabolism. The results of their research were published January 17, 2013, in the journal Cell. Transforming oxygen to energy for growth is key to life for all living cells, which happens either through respiration or fermentation. When oxygen...

Rumsfeld blasts Obama's world image Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld disputes the notion that President Barack Obama has made America more popular around the globe than it was under his former boss, President George W. Bush. Asked on CNN's "State of the Union" by host Candy Crowley whether the U.S. is looked at differently than under his tenure, Rumsfeld replied, “I don't think there's data that supports that.” "He has made a practice of trying to apologize for America," Rumsfeld said of Obama. "I personally am proud of America” Rumsfeld also downplayed Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize. “He had not accomplished...

BRIDGETON, N.J. — Just when it seemed that all the sports-licensing ideas had been exhausted — coffins with team logos, unveiled a few years ago, could have reasonably been the presumed end — along comes something that has been growing in plain sight all along.

These days, political memoirs come in three genres. First, the "everyone around me was an idiot or a crook, but I was a really smart good guy." Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's What Happened perfected the genre, assuring him the place in history previously occupied by Baron Munchausen. The second borrows a line from the great Toby Keith, converting "I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then" from lyric to prose. Former CIA director George Tenet's At the Center of the Storm will, for many a year, be foremost in that category. The last is...

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is scheduled to deliver these remarks Sunday during a wreath-laying ceremony in observance of Sept. 11, 2001, at Arlington National Cemetery. Chaplain James May. Families and friends of those we are here to honor. We gather here, in this place of remembrance, to reflect on a day when terrorists--extremists--struck at the heart of a free people. A day when Americans lost mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters and friends and colleagues. They came from different cultures, different races and different backgrounds. But what united them all was that they had hopes...

Every conflict in history has seen its share of rumor, propaganda and misinformation. The "yellow journalism" that helped launch the Spanish-American War and the infamous radio broadcasts of "Tokyo Rose" during World War II come to mind. But the information technology of the 21st century has made waging an ideological global struggle against extremism particularly complex. Decision makers, the media and the public at large will need to come to terms with the effect of these new realities. The old adage that "A lie can be half-way around the world before truth has its boots on" becomes doubly true with...

Protandim May Slow Aging Process by Increasing Enzymes That Fight Free Radicals- Dr. Joe McCord's latest research may unravel the mystery of aging. And if he succeeds, the answer could come in the form of a little yellow pill called Protandim. The University of Colorado at Denver biochemistry professor has conducted decades of experiments into a special class of enzymes in the cell that some hope have the potential of extending lives and possibly preventing chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Much of his work has centered on oxidative stress -- which increases with age. TBARS, which are...

Washington, DC, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- The U.S. State Department said Thursday it was not pursuing a policy of regime change in Iran. "The United States has been very clear, its officials have been very clear that we do not have a policy of regime change towards Iran," deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said. Fears the United States might try to topple the Iranian regime were stoked last month after New Yorker magazine said U.S. military personnel were operating inside Iran and gathering information about possible nuclear facilities and weapons sites. In his State of the Union address Wednesday, President Bush...

No Name Calling Week?     1/12/2005By Warren Throckmorton, Ph.D.Yes, name-calling is wrong. But this event’s sponsors reveal the agenda behind banning it. “There is a special place in hell for people like you!” These words were directed at me by a teacher during this past summer’s National Education Association (NEA) convention in Washington, D.C. This delegate to the NEA convention made his prediction in response to my presence at the NEA’s Ex-Gay Educators’ Caucus booth in the convention exhibit hall. His cheery salutation caught me off-guard given the message of tolerance and acceptance I had been hearing around the exhibit hall....

Little Darby Creek wildlife refuge proposal is dead, U.S. official says Wednesday, March 13, 2002 Michael Hawthorne Dispatch Environment Reporter The Bush administration yesterday confirmed what local landowners and lawmakers have known for months: There won't be a Little Darby National Wildlife Refuge west of Columbus. In the end, three years of studies, hearings and rallies were boiled down to a few paragraphs sent to the local members of Congress who pressured the Interior Department to scuttle the project. "We believe that conservation of the agricultural and natural resources of the Darby watershed is important,'' wrote Craig Manson, assistant Interior...

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld expressed support for Israel's need for nuclear weapons at a NATO meeting in Munich, reported Ynet Wednesday. When asked about the US administration's leniency on Israel's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, Rumsfeld, without denying or asserting that Israel in fact possessed these, answered unhesitantly: "We take the world like you find it; and Israel is a small state with a small population. It's a democracy and it exists in a neighborhood that in many – over a period of time has opined from time to time that they'd prefer it not be there...