The esteemed British medical journal, the Lancet, has gotten a black eye in the news lately for articles that were poorly screened and were biased for political/personal reasons.
The first one is the 1998 study linking MMR vaccine with Autism.
This study has had devastating effects on three fronts: One, the terrible guilt by parents who are […]

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I am beginning to wonder if the American public thinks former President Bush went ahead and brought home all 140,000 troops from Iraq as an inaugural gift for President Obama (you know, so Obama wouldn’t have to trouble himself with it) or if they simply forgot we were still there.  Then again, considering the precipitous […]

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In June 2007, pursuant to Congressional order, a Department of Defense (DoD) Mental Health Task Force issued a report entitled, “An Achievable Vision,” assessing the mental health needs of the Armed Forces and the ability of the DoD to meet those needs.  It came as no surprise to veterans advocates when the Task Force reported that […]

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 FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog, January 7, 2009, San Francisco – In yet another show of incredibly poor judgement combined with bad timing and ulterior bureaucratic motives resulting in a major waste of U.S. tax dollars, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a bipartisan body responsible for U.S. international broadcasts, had silenced Voice of America (VOA) radio […]

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There is no doubt that the timeless story of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” has been rewritten and rehashed dozens of times over throughout the years. But what if Dickens was a subscriber to Rush Limbaugh’s newsletter and had a penchant for Leslie Nielson films.  Surely you remember Airplane and The Naked Gun, and yes […]

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One US soldier’s wife told me that even though the war in Iraq was essentially over, that some of the terror groups left deliberately targeted non combat American troops with mortars out of hatred for the good they did.
So the sad news of the Christmas holidays was that Doctor John Pryor, a Combat surgeon on […]

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Subtitle: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century
Although American Theocracy is Kevin Phillips’ thirteenth book, it is the first one I have read. In fact, I had never even heard of Mr. Phillips until I saw him on Charlie Rose a few years ago. That interview coincided […]

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 FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog Commentary by Ted Lipien, December 16, 2008, San Francisco – In The Huffington Post article, “Alhurra TV: Uncle Sam’s Boondoggle“ Dr.  Nancy Snow has pointed out a number of serious problems with the  U.S. government-funded Alhurra Arabic-language television program for the Middle East and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which manages Alhurra. Dr. Snow, […]

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Most of the discussion of racism in the US are “ain’t it awful” laments that ignore the dirty little secret of America: That people face less racism in the US than in the rest of the world, and that racism is a slowly disappearing in the United States.
Does racism exist? Yes. But next to the […]

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You might not know it from the headlines, but the war in Iraq is essentially won, and the good guys won.
Oh yes, you will still see reports of bombings, but then 50 years after Magsaysay here in the Philippines essentially ended the Huk uprising, we still get kidnappings, murders and killings here by the NPA, […]

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It is said that every President of the United States has an idiot brother (think Roger Clinton) but with George W Bush he is the idiot brother. Oliver Stone, in his fine new biopic “W.”, has decided not to exaggerate the absurdities of America’s worst ever President – he doesn’t need to. The facts are […]

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M.I.T. graduate Will Bradshaw is co-founder and President of Green Coast Enterprises, using innovative procedures to rebuild New Orleans homes devastated by Katrina. He is pro-life. He is voting for Barack Obama.
When Bradshaw describes himself as “pro-life,” he is speaking about an issue that goes beyond the simplistic code word that usually refers only […]

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Washington Post columnist George Will has made some great contributions to American letters. I’ve enjoyed reading many of his columns. But it seems he is still lost in an old-fashioned conservatism which is no longer alive. A recent column of his proves my point.
There’s no doubt he makes a great point when he says that […]

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The BBC has an interesting article about a “perfect storm”: economic collapse, high inflation,high unemployment, and an up and coming election.
No, not the US: Iran.
Some background:
A couple months ago, oil prices surged to $150 a barrel, causing food and other everyday commodity prices to climb. Here in the Philippines, the government intervened by subsidizing low […]

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This September 11, everyone waited with baited breath for the yearly “nyah nyah nyah” video rant from Al Qaeda.
More worrisome was that there might be a pep talk to coordinate a pre election attack in the US.
But something happened with the Alqaeda websites that usually deliver the videos: They went off line.
It was assumed that […]

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John McCain and Sarah Palin have repeated the epithet over and over again ever since Joe the Plumber confused his own tax cut with socialism. Is presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s tax plan a socialist scheme or a wrong made right? Let’s analyze.
First, Found Father Benjamin Franklin - America’s first millionaire - was a proponent of […]

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Rupert Cornwell, the distinguished and experienced US correspondent of London’s Independent newspaper wrote, more in sorrow than in anger that:
“Yesterday was not only a black Monday for markets. It was the blackest of Mondays too for the US political system, saddled with a discredited president who has completely lost control of his own party and […]

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Sen. Barack Obama talks a good game when it comes to such issues as anti-discrimination, the value of military service and the importance of ensuring children get a high-quality education in public schools, but the choices he has made in his own life suggest that he doesn’t believe the stuff in his own stump speeches […]

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According to The Long War Journal’s Jane Novak, the US Embassy in Yemen was attacked today by a militant group carrying machine guns, RPG’s, and setting off a series of explosions.  The terrorist force was repelled after blowing killing 16 people, and attempting to breach the US compound.  After a fierce gun battle, the militants […]

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Life is full of stresses, and what now is called “post traumatic stress syndrome” is actually quite widespread in the general population.
Abused children, battered wives, those living through life threatening illnesses or accidents all may suffer variations of the syndrome.
. As many as 70% of adults in the United States have experienced at least one […]

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The US Army is very worried about suicide and injuries in returning veterans. Stress in soldiers, and in returning veterans, is nothing new:
During World War II, PTSD was an even more serious problem. In the European Theater, 25 percent of all casualties were serious PTSD cases, compared to about 20 percent today. In the […]

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No grandiose staging for John McCain’s speech accepting the Republican Party’s nomination for president. At his request, convention organizers had reconfigured the stage to build a sort-of fashion model’s catwalk that jutted into the audience so McCain could be amongst them when he addressed them – a more intimate “town hall” type conversation rather than […]

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Last year, I took the opportunity to visit Russia for the first time.  It made a big impression on me and I wrote about the country and its people twice (Russian President Putin to visit USA and Russia plans massive Arctic oil grab) in June 2007.  The impression I came away with was that Russians […]

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 Citing President Bush’s agreeing to a “time horizon” for troop withdrawals from Iraq (second item) and the administration’s having authorized high-level talks with Iran and North Korea, The New York Times notes that McCain – who remains opposed to a timed withdrawal that is not based on conditions on the ground, as well as to […]

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After considering the possibility that “foreign leaders Barack Obama met with on his mid-campaign overseas trip were merely hedging their bets and don’t believe he will win the White House this fall” The Associated Press notes that many of them treated the candidate like a head of state:  
Jordan’s King Abdullah flew back early from Aspen, […]

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Interfaith dialogs Madrid: A Thinking man’s Observation
Welcome with Assalamualaikum,(Peace be upon You)
The Interfaith dialogue entered into the second phase with a gathering of prominent Muslims and Non Muslim scholars across the globe upon the invitation of King Abdullah in Madrid, Spain, from 16 July to 18 July.
It was my first opportunity to see an ocean […]

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Why did the MSM treat Barack Obama’s guided tour through the Middle East and Europe as a Major Event that required their nightly news anchors to fly to Jordan (CBS’ Katie Couric), Israel (ABC’s Charles Gibson) and Germany (NBC’s Brian Williams)? Believe it or not, John McCain talked them into it, reports The Associated Press: […]

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John McCain, of all people, should know that to make a claim, as he did recently, that America is winning the war in Iraq is disingenuous in the extreme. There is no doubt at all that conventional warfare, with battlefield deployment of forces and conventional tactics, will be won by the combatant with the overwhelming […]

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And so, at last, the Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic has been arrested and will stand trial in The Hague where he will probably have to answer charges of genocide. The court in The Hague will be properly constituted, the evidence on both sides will be properly judged and Karadzic can expect to […]

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Writing in Human Events, Jihad Watch’s Robert Spencer observes that, “[t]hree years after the July 7, 2005, jihad terror attacks in London, the jihad in Britain is stronger than ever. It is not proceeding by means of more terrorism, but by stealth and by the preemptive surrender of all too many British officials.” He explains:  
The […]

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