Liberty's Refuge

Zhores Medvedev Died

sunbeam December 27, 2018 Comments Off

Zhores A. Medvedev died last month at his home in London, where he had lived for decades. He had turned 93 the day before. Who was Zhores Medvedev and why was he important?

According to Wikipedia,

Zhores Medvedev and his twin brother Roy were born on 14 November 1925 in Tbilisi, Georgia, USSR. In December 1950, Zhores was awarded a PhD degree for his research into sexual processes in plants. He became a Junior Research Scientist in the Agrochemistry and Biochemistry Department at Timiryazev Academy and he was promoted to Senior Research Scientist in 1954 and remained at the academy until 1963. Beginning in 1952, Medvedev had focused his attention on the problems of aging, concentrating on the turnover of proteins and nucleic acids. In 1961, he published the first paper suggesting that aging is the result of an accumulation of errors in the synthesis of proteins and nucleic acids. ...

What Is Christmas?

sunbeam December 26, 2018 Comments Off

What is Christmas? Christmas is many things to many people. However, no matter what, Christmas is about Christ’s birth. Christmas wouldn’t exist if Christ hadn’t been born. That’s true whether you are a Christian, a Jew, a Hindu or an atheist.

What is the message of Christmas? The day is so magical that its name alone brings smiles on the faces of people around the world! It brings forth special feelings and happiness in hearts of the people. It uplifts the spirits of so many people. There are literally hundreds of songs that have been written for Christmas, many of which are well known to millions of people. ...

Christmas Carol Flash Mob

sunbeam December 25, 2018 Comments Off

If only we could come together as these people did, think of how much better things could be. Perhaps Christ can show us the way this Christmas.

O Holy Night

sunbeam December 24, 2018 Comments Off

As we approach Christmas, let us remember who we celebrate and what he did for us. This is a wonderful rendition of this song.

Net Neutrality Apocalypse

sunbeam December 20, 2018 Comments Off

An Internet Apocalypse was forecasted when the FCC under the Trump administration announced it was rolling back the “Net Neutrality” rules put in place under the Obama administration in 2015.

This abandonment of government regulation of the Internet was supposed to kill the Internet as we knew it. But as we take a closer look a year after the regulations were abolished , what has actually happened? Has the Internet died? Have big companies raised their rates? Has competition been killed? Has there been no change? Or have things actually improved? ...

Will The Flynn Case Be Mueller’s Undoing?

sunbeam December 18, 2018 Comments Off

Will the Michael Flynn case be the undoing of Mueller and his band of #NeverTrumpers? More info trickled out today that showed that it took three weeks for the interview notes (FD-302) to be approved by Andrew McCabe. This was a long time for a simple transcription of the results of an interview. It certainly appears that McCabe had some hand in shaping how the interview was put down on paper.

While not completely clear, it also appears that the second agent’s notes have yet to be produced. This appears to be in violation of the judge’s order to produce such items for his review. Gregg Re reported: ...

The Targeting Of General Flynn

sunbeam December 17, 2018 Comments Off

The Michael Flynn case becomes more and more curious. Last week the judge overseeing the case took the unusual step of directing the DOJ to produce specific notes, docs, etc. on the case. The DOJ has backed away from asking for any jail time for the process crime of lying to the FBI that General Flynn is supposed to have committed.

Flynn was an outspoken critic of President Obama’s Middle East policy that included the rise of ISIS. Obama had pretended that ISIS was inconsequential (“The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a J.V. team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,”). ...

Feel Good Story

sunbeam December 15, 2018 Comments Off

Retired bricklayer and part-time fisherman Joao Pereira de Souza, 71, who lives in an island village just outside Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, found the tiny penguin, covered in oil and close to death, lying on rocks on his local beach in 2011 . Joao cleaned the oil off the penguin’s feathers and fed him a daily diet of fish to build his strength. He named him Dindim.

After a week, he tried to release the penguin back into the sea. But, the bird wouldn’t leave. ‘He stayed with me for 11 months and then, just after he changed his coat with new feathers, he disappeared,’ Joao recalls. ...

Michael Cohen’s Sentencing Memo

sunbeam December 14, 2018 Comments Off

Michael Cohen is back in the news. The Justice Department has released his sentencing memo. Cohen is pleading guilty to a variety of felonies including campaign finance law violations. It certainly seems clear from a casual reading of the memo that Cohen had engaged in fraud for profit to a substantial degree. Deception certainly seems to have been a chief component of his work life.

Should he be going to jail? Based on the fraud and tax evasion charges, it would appear so. However, he also appears to be pleading guilty to a crime that did not occur. Now it is not unusual for individuals to plead guilty to avoid potentially longer sentences even when they did not commit the crime alleged. And this seems to be the case here. ...

Is Macron On The Ropes?

sunbeam December 12, 2018 Comments Off

Will French President Macron survive? France is not Venezuela yet. But, civil unrest continues to be a problem in parts of the country. And the French have a history of overthrowing their rulers and re-writing their constitutions. Since 1789 they have removed three kings, two emperors, and several presidents. During that period of time the country has had 15 constitutions.