Free Republic

As a teen pumping gas on a highway north of New York City, Jim Tour dreamed of becoming a state trooper. It beat filling tanks. The notion of Tour as a highway cop is almost laughably discordant with present-day reality. Three decades later, the trim, intense, 50-year-old Tour has established himself as one of the leading, if not premier, scientists at Rice University. And he's learned to dream big. Four years after Nobel laureate Rick Smalley's untimely death, it is the prolific Tour who as much as anyone has carried on Smalley's groundbreaking legacy in the science of nanotechnology. Confirmation...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The $21 million war between San Francisco's alternative newspapers heated up in court Monday when the Bay Guardian asked for a stake in all property belonging to the rival SF Weekly and its parent company, the 14-paper Village Voice Media. Nearly two years after a San Francisco jury found that SF Weekly had engaged in illegal price-cutting for advertisements to try to ruin the Bay Guardian, the Guardian has gotten court orders that allowed it to seize and sell its rival's two delivery trucks and confiscate the rents the Weekly receives from tenants in its office space...

SD Lawmakers Oppose Sales Tax Boost to Fix Budget Survey: South Dakota lawmakers oppose sales tax boost to fix budget problems CHET BROKAW Associated Press Writer The Associated Press PIERRE, S.D. South Dakota lawmakers have no interest in increasing the state sales tax to fix the state's budget problems, according to a survey by The Associated Press. Two-thirds of the legislators responding to the survey said they oppose increasing the sales tax to balance the budget in the next year or two. House and Senate leaders said lawmakers want to balance the budget with spending cuts, not tax increases. "I...

The U.S. Air Force will contract to have its Space Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) system satellite placed into storage due to continued technical difficulties with the Minotaur 4 rocket that have delayed the spacecraft’s launch indefinitely, according to government documents. The Minotaur 4 rocket, built by Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., and based in part on excess missile motors, was originally planned to debut in October 2009 with the SBSS launch. But the Air Force issued a statement that month saying the rocket had problems and would remain grounded indefinitely, though no further explanation was given. In a solicitation...

India has begun development of lasers and an exoatmospheric kill vehicle that could be combined to produce a weapon to destroy enemy satellites in orbit, the director-general of India’s defense research organization said Jan. 3. “The kill vehicle, which is needed for intercepting the satellite, needs to be developed, and that work is going on as part of the ballistic missile defense program,” said V.K. Saraswat, director-general of the Defence Research and Development Organisation, which is part of India’s Ministry of Defence. In a televised press briefing during the 97th Indian Science Congress in Thiruvananthapuram, Saraswat said the program includes...

A dismal job market, a crippled real estate sector and hobbled banks will keep a lid on U.S. economic growth over the coming decade, some of the nation's leading economists said on Sunday. U.S. Speaking at American Economic Association's mammoth yearly gathering, experts from a range of political leanings were in surprising agreement when it came to the chances for a robust and sustained expansion: They are slim. Many predicted U.S. gross domestic product would expand less than 2 percent per year over the next 10 years. That stands in sharp contrast to the immediate aftermath of other steep economic...

The survey of more than 1,000 parents found that a child’s background was not a factor in how quickly they learnt to talk. Working parents who put their babies in day care are just as likely to have a child whose speech develops late as those who leave their baby in front of the television.

No Holds Barred: The American air farce Jan. 4, 2010 Shmuley Boteach , THE JERUSALEM POST I'm sitting at Newark Airport waiting for my wife and nine children to disembark from an aircraft that landed hours ago. They arrived from Chicago, where we all attended a beautiful family wedding. The kids have school tomorrow and would have had a decent night's sleep, except that some guy wandered backward through an exit and into the secure area of the Continental Airlines terminal, sending the entire airport into lockdown. (Sometimes I wonder if God is playing a trick by making me the...

... A new Web site pitching itself as a Mormon myth-buster recently launched, causing me once again to wonder about why we Latter-day Saints take so much joy in spreading unsubstantiated stories about ourselves. The site, HolyFetch.com, is run by Casey Cummings, a resident of Kaysville, Utah, who says he got interested in the world of Mormon myths when he was on his mission in Austria. The site's basic format is similar to that of sites like snopes.com. People submit popular Mormon myths, and then Cummings investigates them and deems them either "true" or "false." I'm frankly surprised that something...

If there were any doubts that we are under one-party rule, the Democrats just made it perfectly clear by deciding that Obamacare will be pushed over the final legislative hurdle without a formal House-Senate conference committee. Instead, according to Democratic aides, the final compromise talks will be a three-way negotiation involving Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and the White House. Three individuals all of one party and one far left ideological mind making the final decisions on a compromise between the Senate and House versions of so-called health care reform. continued

Brunner OKs 4 minor parties for ballot Monday, January 4, 2010 11:34 PM By Mark Niquette THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Candidates from as many as six political parties could be on the ballot for governor or other offices in Ohio this year. Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner issued a directive last week continuing ballot access for the Libertarian, Green, Socialist and Constitution parties in addition to the Democratic and Republican parties. The decision allows candidates of the four minor parties to qualify for the ballot under their party labels. Officials of the parties say they expect to have candidates for governor,...

Let me get this straight, the suits at NPR (and by "suits" I mean ponytails-and-Birkenstocks) have pressured their commentators Juan Williams and Mara Liasson over appearences on Fox News because they think it damages NPR's credibility. And yet, they think that using your tax dollars for content such as "Learn to Speak Tea Bag" is perfectly ok. Huh.

Washington, DC Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2009 list of Washington's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians." The list, in alphabetical order, includes: http://www.judicialwatch.org/news/2009/dec/judicial-watch-announces-list-washington-s-ten-most-wanted-corrupt-politicians-2009

A year after Israeli forces devastated the Gaza Strip, relief workers and others say the overcrowded Palestinian territory, throttled by economic blockade, is being steadily infiltrated by militants inspired by al-Qaida who are getting ready to challenge Hamas for control. The operational capabilities of these groups, which follow the puritanical Salafist strain of Sunni Islam, remain rather murky. But the last thing Israel wants is jihadist groups active on its southern border. Hamas is faced with eroding popular support following Israel's 22-day invasion in which some 1,200 Gazans, mostly civilians, perished. These groups are reported to have a combined strength...

MSNBC's Keth Olbermann went after Fox News Channel's Brit Hume for comments Mr. Hume made about Christianity this weekend. Olbermann's comparison was so outrageous even his guest, Dan Savage, who was critical of Mr. Hume had to moderate Mr. Olbermann's remarks. (VIDEO BELOW) OLBERMANN: (2:15 in) Isn't this the classic thing that your mother probably also pointed out to you about never discussing religion in public? You can discuss religion in public. Its like this that you're not supposed to do it. This crosses that principle. Keep religious advocacy out of public life since the worst examples of that are...

The New York Times pushed up the publication of a Sunday Magazine article from January 17 to today (online) that leads with a dramatic telling of the incoming and outgoing administrations of Barack Obama and George W. Bush dealing with a reported threat that Somali terrorists would try to attack Obama's inauguration on January 20, 2009.The Times told Politico:(that) following the botched Christmas Day terrorist plot, Deputy Magazine Editor Megan Liberman said that “the urgency set in" to publish sooner. “We just thought we should push the Web-first mantra as much as we could,” Liberman said.While the Times report reads...

US defense manufacturer Lockheed Martin is being awarded an 841.9 million dollar contract to produce 24 F-16 aircraft for Morocco, which ordered the jets in 2008, the Pentagon said Tuesday. Lockheed also won contracts to supply the Pentagon with "advanced counter measure system electronic warfare system, along with associated support equipment, alternate mission equipment and support elements," the Pentagon said in a statement. The total value of the contract between the United States and Morocco is estimated at around 2.4 billion dollars, not all of which will be handled by Lockheed. Other firms that manufacture or supply parts and equipment...

A record 370,000 TEUs of ship capacity was scrapped in 2009 – an amount equal to the cumulative capacity scrapped over the past decade – says Shipping Gazette quoting figures compiled by Alphaliner, the Paris-based consultancy agency. This is the largest ever recorded level of scrapping of capable container ships largely because the owners struggle to find employment for surplus vessels. According to figures, 200 container ships were sold for scrap in 2009, including the 17-year-old Hyundai Admiral (capacity 4651 TEUs). With this high level of scrapping, the average age of vessels demolished has dropped to 27 years, thus reversing...

The second generation of Lockheed Martin's Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system, BMD 4.0.1, successfully detected, tracked and conducted simulated engagements against a variety of different ballistic missile targets during a series of tracking exercises in the Pacific. The key feature of the new system is a new integrated signal processor designed to improve the system's discrimination capability to defeat sophisticated ballistic missiles and their countermeasures. During a series of four tests, the guided missile cruiser USS Lake Erie - upgraded with the BMD 4.0.1 Weapon System - successfully detected, tracked and guided simulated Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IBs to...

Somewhat like a copyright notice or trademark protection the Holy See is now protecting the name and papal symbols of the Pope... what about the man?[contains new video of Pope attack]...read more...

Amid mounting concern that Israel may unleash pre-emptive strikes against Iran to attack its nuclear facilities, some Israeli commentators are preaching restraint. They warn that Israel does not have the firepower to deliver a knockout blow to Iran's perceived drive for nuclear weapons and faces a potentially withering Iranian retaliation the likes of which they have never endured before. "It must be stated plainly: Israel does not have independent strike capability against Iran -- not in the broad sense of the term," Amos Harel wrote in the liberal daily Haaretz Wednesday. "The air force is capable of delivering a certain...

The leader of the BNP (British National Party), Nick Griffin MEP, has stated that he, Andrew Brons MEP and Richard Barnbrook AM, will "use their own bodies to physically block the street and any attempt by Muslim fanatics to insult the memory of our fallen soldiers." It was recently announced that Anjem Choudary, the leader of Islam4UK, planned to march through the streets of Wootton Bassett carrying "empty coffins symbolising the Muslim victims of the conflict in Afghanistan""Wootton Bassett has a special significance for us all at this time, as it has been the scene of the repatriation of many...

(Video) Harlem Pastor sees pure evil in Obama

Yes, I’ll agree that there has been a dispiriting amount of lies told by presidential administrations throughout the country’s 200-plus year history. But has there ever been a White House so contemptuous of the American people as to insult our intelligence the way this crowd does?

NASHVILLE (CN) - A judge in Dickson County, Tenn., had officers pull a spectator out of his courtroom "on a hunch," held him in custody and made him submit to a urinalysis for drugs, the man claims in Federal Court. Benjamin Marchant claims that General Sessions Judge Durwood Moore admitted that he "routinely drug-screens 'spectators' in his courtroom if he 'thinks' they may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol." Moore allegedly called it the "routine policy of the court." Marchant says he was in Moore's courtroom supporting a friend, when Moore ordered officers to take him into custody....

I'm sitting at Newark Airport waiting for my wife and nine children to disembark from an aircraft that landed hours ago. They arrived from Chicago, where we all attended a beautiful family wedding. The kids have school tomorrow and would have had a decent night's sleep, except that some guy wandered backward through an exit and into the secure area of the Continental Airlines terminal, sending the entire airport into lockdown. (Sometimes I wonder if God is playing a trick by making me the Forrest Gump of current events. How did I ever get into this story?) Tanner Suttles, left,...

Voters Agree Only on Taxing The Rich To Pay for Health Care Plan Rasmussen Reports ^ | January 4, 2010 Posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 11:41:57 AM by reaganaut1 When it comes to paying for the cost of the proposed health care reform plan, voters are okay with taxing the rich but strongly reject cuts in Medicare and excise taxes on “Cadillac” health plans provided by employers. Should Republicans Have Compromised to Produce a Less-Bad Healthcare Bill? Cato Institute ^ | January 2, 2010 | Daniel J. Mitchell Posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 11:55:36 PM by Delacon Writing...

Global Bear Rally Will Deflate As Japan Leads World In Sovereign Bond Crisis Milton Keynes will be vindicated. Lord Keynes will lose some of his new-found gloss. The Krugman doctrine that we should all spend our way back to health by pushing deficits to the brink of a debt spiral – or beyond the brink – will be seen as dangerous. By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor Published: 6:15AM GMT 04 Jan 2010 The contraction of M3 money in the US and Europe over the last six months will slowly puncture economic recovery as 2010 unfolds, with the time-honoured lag...

There was no terrorist attack on 9/11. It was the fruition of a criminal enterprise. That, at least, is Barack Obama’s working theory on what happened that day. It would be one thing if our lives were not at stake. Barack Obama has decided he is going to show the world that George Bush was wrong in how he conducted the war on terror. Bush decided to send foreign terrorist enemies to GTMO for questioning by the military and, in a few cases, to be water boarded to get answers. Obama is above that He is better than that. Barack...

More security changes are expected after White House review. The Obama administration has transferred dozens of names from a broad terrorism database to watch lists that are more closely monitored in an effort to plug security holes revealed by the Christmas Day airline-bombing attempt. President Barack Obama met Monday with Central Intelligence Agency officials and White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan ahead of a broader security team meeting Tuesday. That meeting will discuss assessments provided by intelligence agencies of how Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was able to allegedly smuggle explosives onto a Northwest Airlines flight, despite warnings about him and numerous...

Time runs out for ageing Royal Navy carriers Tom Coghlan: Behind the Story It had been a textbook wargame in almost every respect. Ark Royal performed violent evasive manoeuvres at 30 knots in the Channel and a jet thundered past its bridge amid anti-aircraft fire. And then there was the fire in one of the carrier’s four engines — not part of the exercise. The first sign of the air attack is a radar blip 100 nautical miles away. In the green glow of the screen Flying Officer Sarah McDonnel warns that it fits the profile of a Russian built...

Britain's ruling party makes class a central issue in the looming general election. During 2010 we will have a British general election in which one of the main issues will be the weirdly retro one of social class. The ruling Labour Party does not have much ordnance in its arsenals, but the one sulfurous stink bomb it does possess--a weapon of possible mass destruction, politically, or so it hopes--is the "toffishness" of the challenging Conservatives and their youthful leader, David Cameron. Smooth, good-looking Cameron is the son of a stockbroker. Can't you just tell it from the swine's peachy complexion...

Signs Point to Kim Jong-il Trip to China Effective midnight on Tuesday, special security is being imposed in Dandong, on the Chinese border with North Korea, Free North Korea Radio reported Monday. The security upgrade is seen as heralding a long-expected visit to China by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Citing sources, Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper on Thursday said back-to-back visits to China by key North Korean officials after Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's trip to North Korea last October "appear related to steps to fine-tune the agenda ahead of Kim's visit." The daily added Kim is highly likely to visit...

With each passing day we learn about a new hole in our defenses that allowed the Underwear Bomber on to Northwest Flight 253, with the purpose of scattering bit and pieces of airplane and human across the city of Detroit. On Saturday Newsweek revealed that on December 22nd, three days before the attempted underwear bombing, the President was warned that an attack might be imminent. Sunday saw the revelation that counterterrorism adviser John Brennan was briefed that al Qaeda was sending out terrorists with bombs in their briefs, and that one had almost blown up a Saudi prince. Today the...

nowBuzz up! SEOUL, South Korea — Seoul residents slogged through the heaviest snowfall in modern Korean history after a winter storm dumped more than 10 inches (26 centimeters) Monday, forcing airports to cancel flights and paralyzing traffic in South Korea’s bustling capital. The snow and icy roads snarled traffic in and out of Seoul, and at least three people died in traffic accidents. Many commuters squeezing into packed subway trains to get to work, and a regular Cabinet meeting also was delayed Monday because ministers were stuck in traffic. The snowfall, which continued through Monday afternoon, was the worst since...

The Christmas Day terrorist attack on Flight 253 was an actual disaster that never occurred thanks to luck (the bomb's detonators were faulty) and to heroism (a Dutch passenger, Jasper Schuringa, literally jumped over rows of passengers to nab the terrorist, subdue him, and save lives). The averted Christmas Day attack, though, is turning into a political disaster for the Obama administration and the Democratic Left. Political disaster looms because the American people rightly want to know how a terrorist like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, with detonators and explosives in hand, ever managed to get on Flight 253 -- especially after...

The Northwest Flight 253 bombing attempt has once again reignited the debate over using profiling as a security technique. Many have pointed out over the years that ethnic profiling could have stopped the attacks of September 11. And it probably could have. But profiling alone is not the solution. First of all let's concede that America's intelligence capabilities are virtually useless. Shoe bomber Richard Reid was spotted by the Israelis. British intelligence knew about Umar. Nidal Malik Hasan did everything but walk around within the military establishment carrying a sign, "I Will Kill You All". And had he even actually...

(VIDEO) Anyone with half an ounce of intellectual honesty admits that the Obama Stimulus (Porkulus) plan has been an abysmal failure. Never failing to let a good crisis go to waste, the politicians went to great lengths to sell the biggest political boondoggle of all-time! The video below, courtesy of Naked Emperor News, captures these snake-oil salesmen (or, to be PC, "salespeople") peddling their fiscal insanity and deception. After watching this, you may be interested in viewing the Interactive Map of Obama's Phony Stimulus Jobs, as well as the short, 1948 video that features "Dr. Utopia", and is entitled, Make...

Israel in 2009, as well as from 2000, proved to be one of the best places to invest money. The popular Tel Aviv 25 index soared 75 percent in 2009 and now is only 8 percent from its all time high of 1,166 of two years ago, while popular averages in the United States climbed by less than 29 percent last year.

Six trucks of explosives 'disappear' in Yemen Fears of a terrorist strike against Western embassies in Yemen have grown amid claims a convoy of lorries laden with explosives had been smuggled into the country's capital city, Sana'a. By Adrian Blomfield in Sana'a Published: 6:37PM GMT 04 Jan 2010 In an apparently botched surveillance operation, militants driving six trucks filled with weapons and ordnance succeeded in giving security forces the slip as they entered the city, according to local media. The revelations came as western diplomatic missions in Sana'a went into lockdown following threats from al-Qaeda's Yemeni affiliate, which has taken...

Instability in Yemen is a global as well as regional threat, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said. She said the Yemeni government had to take measures to restore stability or risk losing Western support. The US embassy, closed after threats from a regional al-Qaeda offshoot, would reopen when "conditions permit". The UK and France have also shut their embassies. Security at world airports has been tightened after the alleged jet bomb attack in Detroit last month. The suspect - a Nigerian - had allegedly been trained in Yemen. He has been charged in the US with trying to...

CHARLESTON W Va-- Police made an arrest Monday after they said a small child was forced to endure inhumane treatment. Charleston Detectives could only describe the conditions this child was being forced to live in as deplorable. And it's a chain of inexcusable actions that have police arresting two and searching for a third. Monday afternoon, James Usher,18, was arrested, charged with child abuse creating the risk of injury. Police said Usher and a woman, Della Jackson, were watching the two year old at his the baby's residence on Indiana Avenue in Charleston. Detectives said while in their care, the...

It's beginning to look like Yemen is the new Afghanistan - a failed Muslim state turned into an al Qaeda safe haven. The Christmas Day bombing plot was hatched there. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton declared yesterday that instability in Yemen poses a "global threat." The United States is conducting air strikes against jihadist militants. In a recent Fox News online poll, 60 percent of respondents agreed that this country should "organize an offensive in Yemen in response to Al Qaeda threats." Help is on the way from America, but unfortunately they are terrorist reinforcements.

India, Russia close to PACT on next generation fighter Ajai Shukla / New Delhi January 05, 2010, 0:38 IST Late last year, a defence ministry delegation to Sukhoi’s flagship aircraft facility in Siberia became the first Indians to set eyes upon the next-generation fighter that is slated to form the backbone of the future Indian Air Force (IAF). In that first meeting, carefully choreographed by Sukhoi, the new fighter, standing on the tarmac waved a welcome to the Indians, moving all its control fins simultaneously. The effect, recounts one member of that delegation, was electric. The senior IAF officer there...

U.S., China locked in trade disputes By Ariana Eunjung Cha Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, January 4, 2010 BEIJING -- Trade disputes between Beijing and Washington over exports of tires, chickens, steel, nylon, autos, paper and salt are multiplying and further damaging the already tense relationship between the two economic powers. The Obama administration says it only aims to protect the country's rights, but the Chinese counter that the United States started the whole thing by launching an unprovoked attack. The current tensions began in September, when the United States imposed a staggering 35 percent import fee on tires from...

Here is video of Fox News' Brit Hume talking tonight about his comments yesterday in which he encouraged Tiger Woods to "turn to the Christian faith." Hume told Bill O'Reilly his intention was not to "prosyletize" Woods, but to simply say that he (Hume) believes that "“Jesus Christ offers Tiger Woods something Tiger Woods desperately needs." . . . (VIDEO)

How Rising Oil Prices Will Force U.S. Into A Post-Industrial Wasteland James Kunstler Jan. 4, 2010, 5:12 PM It's the first business day of the new year and oil is trading above $80 a barrel, which means the price has re-entered the danger zone where it can crush industrial economies. This is a central element of the predicament we find ourselves in. The US economy is essentially a Happy Motoring economy. During the whole nervous period since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, American gasoline consumption hardly went down at all, though so many other activities collapsed, from house-building to trucking....

Labour’s attempt to launch their election campaign with an attack on Conservative spending plans backfired when it instead exposed divisions in their own economic policies. Alistair Darling refused to commit to keeping the current rate of VAT through the next parliament, just a day after criticising the Conservatives for admitting it may have to go up. Alsiatir Darling said there was a 'credibility gap' of Ł34 billion between what the Conservatives had promised to voters and what could be afforded The Chancellor also seemed to offering a contrasting view to Gordon Brown by freely talking about spending cuts and admitting...

"Levi Johnston, the boyfriend of Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol, has quit his North Slope oil field job over questions about his eligibility to work in an electrical apprenticeship program, Johnston's father said Monday. Johnston, 18, began working this fall in the Milne Point oil field with ASRC Energy Services Inc., a major Slope contractor. In a Sunday newspaper column, Anchorage radio talk show host Dan Fagan questioned how Johnston could take part in ASRC's apprenticeship program without a high school diploma. Fagan said he understood federal regulations require all members of apprenticeship programs to have a diploma. He also...

The Eastern two-thirds of the United States will be in the grips of a long-lasting spell of harsh, arctic cold. We are already in the midst of the first wave of the cold air invasion. The second and likely even colder air mass will begin its descent over the eastern United States on Wednesday morning. By Sunday morning, the cold wave will have made its way as far south as the Florida Keys. Below you'll find a collection of maps providing visuals and data on this arctic invasion. We will be constantly updating everyone on this arctic blast through the...