Free Republic

President Barack Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder issued conflicting statements on how captured Islamic terrorists should be treated. Holder insisted that those like the Christmas day bomber will be handled under existing criminal statutes. This includes advising them of their right to remain silent. “We cannot sacrifice the rights of the accused to the notion that the safety of innocent victims takes precedence,” Holder said. “Saving lives may seem important to some, but preserving our system of jurisprudence has got to be a higher priority.” On the other hand, President Obama asserted that “the idea that we can...

Spanking can get kids to behave in a hurry, but new research suggests it can do more harm than good to their noggins. The study, involving hundreds of U.S. children, showed the more a child was spanked the lower his or her IQ compared with others. "All parents want smart children," said study researcher Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire. "This research shows that avoiding spanking and correcting misbehavior in other ways can help that happen." One might ask, however, whether children who are spanked tend to come from backgrounds in which education opportunities are less or inherited...

Subject: FW: An Israeli Agent's Advice and Warning Juval Aviv was the Israeli Agent upon whom the movie "Munich" was based. He was Golda Meir's bodyguard -- she appointed him to track down and bring to justice the Palestinian terrorists who took the Israeli athletes hostage and killed them during the Munich Olympic Games. (Aviv's bio is noted at end.) He predicted the London subway bombing on the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox News stating publicly that it would happen within a week. At the time, O'Reilly laughed and mocked him saying that in a week he wanted him back...

Palin will name Tom Selleck for VP

Barack Obama has struggled for 18 months to lock down the support of a traditionally Democratic group, Jewish voters. In the past week, John McCain may have helped Obama with his Jewish problem by choosing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.... "There is almost always an inverse proportion between a candidate's popularity among conservative Christians and secular Jews," said Jeff Ballabon, a Republican lobbyist long active in Jewish politics who supports McCain. An illustration of that gap came just two weeks ago, when Palin's church, the Wasilla Bible Church, gave its pulpit over to a figure viewed with...

Contact: M. Royhan Gani rgani@egi.utah.edu 801-585-3539 University of Utah Evolution tied to Earth movementGeologists say 'Wall of Africa' allowed humanity to emerge Nahid and Royhan Gani, geologists at the University of Utah's Energy and Geoscience Institute, stand on the Ethiopian Plateau near the Gorge of the Nile, which was carved by Africa's... Scientists long have focused on how climate and vegetation allowed human ancestors to evolve in Africa. Now, University of Utah geologists are calling renewed attention to the idea that ground movements formed mountains and valleys, creating environments that favored the emergence of humanity. “Tectonics [movement of Earth’s crust]...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Higher state taxes on smoking are producing sharp declines in tobacco consumption in the United States, just as Congress considers a huge federal cigarette tax hike, USA Today reported in its Friday editions. The newspaper, conducting its own analysis of taxation and consumption figures, said the degree of decline in smoking appears to be tied directly to the size of the tax increase. For example, cigarette sales fell 18 percent in North Carolina last year after the state tax was raised in two steps to 35 cents from a 5 cents, the newspaper said. In Connecticut, per...

Pew judged the levels of knowledgeability (correct answers) among those surveyed and found that those who scored the highest were regular watchers of Comedy Central's The Daily Show and Colbert Report. They tied with regular readers of major newspapers in the top spot -- with 54% of them getting 2 out of 3 questions correct. Watchers of the Lehrer News Hour on PBS followed just behind. Virtually bringing up the rear were regular watchers of Fox News. Only 1 in 3 could answer 2 out of 3 questions correctly. Fox topped only network morning show viewers.

Senator DeMint on Romney, Healthcare and his decision to support Mitt

Republicans thought a revetment against a Democratic barrage could be made of anti-immigration hysteria. Demonizing immigrants, they thought, was good politics. And it was -- for the Democrats. Across the land, from border towns that face a large in-migration of illegal border crossers to ones that just indulged in nativism for the sport of it, Republicans who chose this issue as their campaign centerpiece went down to stunning defeat. Running against President Bush was a successful strategy -- if you were a Democrat and the issue was the Iraq war. Running against President Bush was a decidedly ruinous one if...

Call it the backlash against the backlash. Over the past decade, Americans have increasingly understood that the divorce revolution, fatherlessness and single parent households are harming our children. Now those who view the traditional family as disadvantageous to women are firing back, defending women who choose single motherhood and depicting fathers as superfluous. Last fall Stanford University Gender Scholar Peggy Drexler penned the highly-publicized book Raising Boys Without Men: How Maverick Moms Are Creating the Next Generation of Exceptional Men. This month Oxford Press released Wellesley College Women's Studies Professor Rosanna Hertz’s Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice: How Women...

A group of Christian Democrats seeking to compete against Republicans for the vote of religious Americans has started a Web site meant to serve as a forum for like thinkers and a political tool to raise money and volunteers for Democratic candidates who share their values. The new site, FaithfulDemocrats.com, is partly the brainchild of David Wilhelm, a former Democratic National Committee chairman who also managed campaigns for Mayor Richard M. Daley and President Bill Clinton. "So the main thing was to help reframe the values debate to be beyond wedge-issue politics, beyond fear and division and more focused on...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A full-time stay-at-home mother would earn $134,121 a year if paid for all her work, an amount similar to a top U.S. ad executive, a marketing director or a judge, according to a study released on Wednesday. A mother who works outside the home would earn an extra $85,876 annually on top of her actual wages for the work she does at home, according to the study by Waltham, Massachusetts-based compensation experts Salary.com. To reach the projected pay figures, the survey calculated the earning power of the 10 jobs respondents said most closely comprise a mother's...

PIERRE, S.D. - The superintendent of Mount Rushmore was surprised at first when people from all over the country started calling up to express their opinion about South Dakota's ban on nearly all abortions. Some callers said they were so upset that they would never visit Mount Rushmore, South Dakota's No. 1 tourist attraction. Others said they were so thrilled that they would make a point of coming to see the chiseled faces of four U.S. presidents in the Black Hills. On further reflection, Superintendent Gerard Baker decided that the messages from far and wide made sense, because Mount Rushmore...

If, as he ponders the Threat Matrix at his daily intelligence briefing, Cheney really sees himself as a modern Achilles or Hector on the plains at Troy, he is not just being grandiose. Cheney is often lauded as that rare No. 2 who, having no political ambition for himself, can give his all to the president. But Cheney's aloofness from the ebb and flow of politics and public opinion has apparently dulled his senses in a way that is not helpful to his boss, who has been busy lately defending his administration from criticism that it was badly out of...

Fellow Americans, there comes a time every mans life when we must give up ourselves before we are worthy to recieve. There comes a time in this war on terror when in order to protect liberty, we have to give it up in the mean time for safty. That's right folks. Today, Americans have forsaken the creator for the creation and have decided that they would value our "civil liberties" than protecting western civilization and rich white people from the tender mercies of radical Islamic terrorists. Selfish liberals insist and whine that Bush has no right to spy on Americans...

Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) failed today to address rumors that Nevada Senator Harry Reid will step down next month as Senate Minority Leader. Reid has been stung by revelations that his political action committee (PAC) accepted more than $60,000 in contributions from Indian tribes linked to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Appearing on CNN's Late Edition, Biden avoided discussing either the Reid situation or any upcoming changes in Senate Democratic leadership. Reid is no stranger to scandal, having been the subject of a 1979 Justice Department probe into allegations that Reid — then Nevada Gaming Commission chairman — had received bribes...

After reading all of the crap that people have been saying regarding Adult Private Social Clubs, I felt that I had to post an article and give my opinion. I am sick and tired of all the religous groups that are saying that there are drugs, prostitution, minors, non-consenting people, and just immoral people at these clubs! First of all, who do these people think they are to decide what is morally right or wrong for me? I believe that I have a good set of morals. I am a law abiding, tax paying citizen, I work full time and...

Fox is reporting that the Alito floor vote in the Senate is being pushed into next week by the Dems. This is, by my count, the second or third time the Dems have broken their word re. the Alito nomination. The Libs are still seeking support for a filibuster. Fox projects a 10-8 vote for Alito in committee and a bare majority vote by the full Senate. This would, of course, givew the Dems the 41 votes they need to sustain a filibuster. No word yet in Frist's feelings about his latest tactical loss. (We definitely need new Congressional leadership).

ALBANY, N.Y. - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton remains strong for her re-election bid this year, and a majority of New York voters think she would make a fine president, a statewide poll showed Friday. New Yorkers are not nearly as well disposed to the notion of Republican Gov. George Pataki running for president, according to the poll. Pataki, who is considering a run for the White House, announced in July he would not seek a fourth, four-year term this year. The poll, from the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, found Democrat Clinton sporting 2-1 leads over her best-known potential challengers for...