Free Republic

Randi Weingarten has delusions of grandeur. She thinks she should be given the power of a dictator instead of those of a teachers union president. Instead of just teaching kids, Weingarten imagines that she should become doctor, nanny, nutritionist, psychologist, and mother to every kid in America. She imagines that she should be given the care and feeding of all the nation's kids. Parents? Who need 'em when we've got Mother Weingarten to trot them off to re-education camps where they will be fed and cared for on a daily basis? Catch the arrogance, see this nanny-state despot lining...

NAIROBI, Kenya — At a time of drought, skyrocketing food prices, crippling inflation and intensifying street fighting, many of the aid workers whom millions of Somalis depend on for survival are fleeing their posts — or in some cases the country.

Obama Makes Stop On Way To Afghanistan In Whirlwind Tour Of Middle East, Europe CHICAGO (CBS) A group soldiers serving overseas, including some from the Chicago area, were overjoyed Saturday when presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama visited in Kuwait. As CBS 2's Susan Carlson reports, Obama stopped in at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait before making his first trip to Afghanistan. Camp Arifjan is a major gateway for U.S. soldiers moving into and out of Iraq. The soldiers applauded thunderously when Obama arrived; one of them could barely contain herself as she sported a Chi-town sign. When the cheers settled...

3 shot in press conference gun blast Created: 2008-7-19 0:24:19 Author:Yang Lifei THREE reporters in Sichuan Province were injured at Nanchong City Public Security Bureau when a confiscated gun accidentally went off, Chongqing Times reported yesterday. The gun was used for hunting birds and was loaded with buckshot at the time of the accident, the report said. Su Dingwei, a reporter from West China City Daily, was in stable condition after surgery. Wang Xiaofeng from Chinanews.com.cn and Zhang Yicheng from Nanchong Daily received minor injuries, the report said. The accident occurred 10 minutes after a public security bureau press conference...

DESPITE the fanfare attending Mayor Bloomberg's new way of measuring poverty, the effort is largely irrelevant to the most crippling burden a poor child in the United States can face today: growing up without his or her father. The proposed new measure of poverty would raise the number of New York City residents deemed poor - and thus eligible for more federal aid. That's why Democratic mayors across the country, eyeing similar results for their own cities, have greeted it with delight. Bloomberg's effort does nothing to improve the debate about the causes and cures for long-term poverty. Indeed, it...

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) - For "reasons of safety", bars are forbidden to serve "blacks"" and Mongolians or place tables in the street. Street musicians are being banned, and so is buying medicines containing "stimulants" without a prescription. Prohibitions are on the rise for the Olympic capital, while the first leaks reveal a grandiose fireworks display for the inauguration. Bar owners around the Workers' Stadium in downtown Beijing say that public security officials are telling them not to let in "blacks" and Mongolians, and many of them have even had to sign a pledge. The official reason is the fight against drugs...

Gray wolves in the greater Yellowstone area of the northern Rocky Mountains, which would have been fair game for hunters in three states as a result of a federal government decision in March, were again put under the protections of the Endangered Species Act by a judge in Montana on Friday. The action by the judge, Donald W. Molloy of Federal District Court, took the form of a preliminary injunction and could be reversed. But Judge Molloy’s language showed serious reservations about the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to remove endangered species protections for the wolves. Environmental groups, including Defenders...

China is abandoning Chairman Mao's dream to make Beijing a workers' paradise, rebuilding it under the cover of a "green" Olympics as a capital for its 21st century empire. In a display of the city's determination to improve its air quality, officials this week vaunted the closure and relocation to the coast of its biggest polluter, the smoke-stacked mini-state of Capital Steel. Three of its blast furnaces stand blackened and idle, along with two of its three steel mills. A fourth furnace will shut on Sunday, when for the sake of the Olympics industrial production will be reduced across five...

HOME owners could be forced to turn their houses green before they can sell them under a proposal before the State Government. Planning Minister Justin Madden yesterday refused to comment on the proposal. The Master Builders Association wants laws to make it compulsory for owners of all existing homes to meet minimal environmental standards before they are allowed to sell them. The changes will cost each homeowner hundreds of dollars but the MBA says buyers of newly built homes are already being forced to meet five-star standards and they shouldn't be the only ones bearing the burden of helping the...

The rector who presided at the controversial 'gay marriage' of two priests has caused fresh outrage by conducting £1,800 'white wedding' services for Japanese tourists. The Rev Martin Dudley has benefited from a craze for Western-style ceremonies among Japanese couples - many followers of Shintoism or Buddhism - by blessing their unions in his London church. The blessings - which feature traditional music, a white bridal dress, prayers and Bible readings, bouquets and confetti - are not banned by the Church of England but critics say they undermine the dignity of marriage.

So House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is about 40-odd minutes into her "Ask the Speaker" session Saturday at the Netroots Nation confab here in Austin,TX and about to field a question about energy and the environment, when she says she's got to call a friend. Offstage is heard the voice of Al Gore. No, wait he's actually here and the Netrootsters in the airline hangar sized hall greeted him with a nearly a minute long standing O. It was like a surprise guest showing up to jam at a Bridge School Benefit Concert. -- if you're a political geek, which we...

Dangerous Brady States July 19, 2008 at 3:14 am · The lamestream media told you: The Brady Center gun-control group has issued its list of the states with the best gun laws, and we give them prominent coverage of this each year without checking for accuracy, the net effect of their custom ratings, or what they consider the “best” gun laws to be. We’re just “finding truth and reporting it,” since the Bradys did say what we said they said. The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that: Barre Bollinger, a GeorgiaCarry.Org member, looked into the Brady Center’s state ratings. (A score...

          NEVER ENOUGH TIME While I have only been an occasional visitor to Washington, I was struck by one scene so strongly that it remains as somewhat of a reference. My first view "up close and personal" of the Pentagon was neither awe-inspiring nor intimidating. To be sure, I was impressed with the size of the building, but that was about it. What came upon me, and has stayed with me, is the image of an ant farm. An enormous one, surely, but an ant farm nonetheless. So may passageways with so many ants constantly...

SCALIA THE ENEMYby Judie BrownReleased May 28, 2008It came as no surprise when a dear friend, Andy V. of Minnesota, wrote me concerning a comment Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made during an interview with Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes on April 27. Since I never watch network programming, which is, I presume, a blessing, I simply had no idea what the Catholic Scalia had said. Perhaps you did, but in case you are uninformed, the following is from the transcript of that interview:"What is the connection between your Catholicism, your Jesuit education, and your judicial philosophy?" Stahl asks. "It...

Although the nation's largest Latino advocacy organization is a nonprofit that must remain nonpartisan because it gets millions of U.S. federal grant dollars, the group's president helped lead a Barack Obama pep rally during an annual conference. The extremist Mexican group National Council of La Raza clearly endorses Obama, which is why La Raza President Janet Marguia stood by as Los Angeles' renowned Chicano Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa praised Obama during the group's annual convention in San Diego. Villaraigosa assured the crowd that Obama is LATINOS' BEST HOPE for reforming the nation's immigration policies. If that's not an endorsement, then what...

The head examiner of a British school-examination board, Peter Buckroyd, whose examinations are taken by 780,000 children, recently explained to teachers why a pupil who answered the question, “Describe the room you’re in,” with...

In Barack Obama’s July 2, 2008 speech calling America to national service, Obama proposed “a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as our military. This has prompted some in the blogosphere to raise the specter of a huge new domestic paramilitary organization. Others suggest that he may have been talking about our “current non-military security agencies - FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA, DHS, etc.” I think that both interpretations are probably wrong. If you listen to the whole speech –- or even the couple minutes before his security force proposal — I think...

Batman is a neocon By Sharon McGovern In conservative circles there is a tradition of wailing and gnashing teeth over American movie culture. It’s well deserved. There is much about the industry that is despicable, movies are dauntingly complex to make, and most of what passes as film criticism—which might serve as a corrective or guide—is degraded and lame. It’s a near miracle that decent movies are made at all, let alone any that would please the notoriously fussy and uptight Right. The folly of the war in Iraq has been a defining theorem in Hollywood for the past few...

Exclusive: US rocker Ted Nugent's outrageous rant on UK knife crime By Jody Thompson, 17/07/2008 (What's this?)American rock star Ted Nugent has followed in Lily Allen's footsteps to be the latest celebrity to comment on the UK's knife crime problem. However, unlike Lily, he's set to spark controversy with his outrageous views. An advocate of hunting and gun-ownership rights, Nugent currently serves on the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association and thinks the problem would stop if Britons were allowed to arm themselves with guns. Talking mid-set during his gig at London's Indigo venue in the 02 Arena...

“Annoying and misleading” is what Sulpician ethicist Fr. Gerald Coleman has called a retired Australian bishop’s attempt to link celibacy with clergy sexual abuse of children. Writing in the July 11 San Francisco archdiocesan Catholic San Francisco, Coleman, the former rector of St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park and currently the vice president for ethics for the Daughters of Charity Health System, challenged Geoffrey Robinson, a former auxiliary bishop of Sydney, Australia. In May, Cardinal Roger Mahony forbade Robinson to speak in the Los Angeles archdiocese, as did Bishop Tod Brown in the Diocese of Orange and Robert Brom of...

"Cities across America are applying to participate in the fall 2008 nationally coordinated 40 Days for Life campaign – a focused initiative that promises to be the largest and longest coordinated pro-life mobilization in history," said David Bereit, national campaign director of 40 Days for Life. "Abortion claims more than 1.2 million innocent lives in the United States each year," he added, "and in 2008, the stakes for our nation are higher than ever. People of faith and conscience are approaching this challenge with a heightened sense of urgency." 40 Days for Life is a community-based campaign that features 40...

Like a bad dream, the gory images have come back to haunt the land of famished fields and parched valleys veiled in dense layers of dust. Just about when the picture of a woman — covered from head to toe in a blue burqa with a narrow screen in front of her stony eyes — shot in the back of her head was turning grainy, the nightmare revisited Ghazni city last week. Two women, wrapped in blue, were asked to kneel on the ground. And then a few fierce-looking men, with hate dripping from their eyes, nudged the women's bowed...

When Hazel Homer was 99, more than one doctor advised that there was little to be done about her failing heart except wait for it to fail a final time. But Mrs. Homer was not interested in waiting to die of what many would call old age. Now, at 104, her heart is still ticking, thanks to a specialized pacemaker and defibrillator that synchronizes her heartbeat and can administer a slight shock to revive her if her heart falters. Her operation, a month before her 100th birthday, reflects what some doctors are hailing as a new frontier in medicine: successful...

A Minnesota conservative is calling for an end to the tax-exempt status and public financing of the country’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. According to Planned Parenthood's latest annual report, the organization received more than $1 billion from revenues -- nearly one-third of that figure came from "government grants and contracts." In light of that report, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) became outraged when she learned of Planned Parenthood's new branding effort in her Minnesota district. She says the new strategy is a move away from helping poor women with family planning, and instead involves targeting latte-drinking, affluent women across America....

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A leading pro-life women's group told members of Congress and their staff this week that women across the country lack pregnancy helps and resources. Feminists for Life of America says the need is particularly acute for college students without good campus resources.The organization held a special workshop on Tuesday to help Congressional staff understand the problem and encourage more support in upcoming legislation.While many college students who become pregnant might prefer to keep their baby and parent while they complete their education, Serrin Foster, the head of the group, says most universities make that task...

Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. O LORD, you preserve both man and beast. How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. you give them drink from your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. Continue your love to those who know you, your righteousness to the upright in heart. (Psalm 36:5-10)

The one term junior Senator from Illinois and former community organizer has landed in Afghanistan, the first stop on his unprecedented tour of Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe. It is a sad day when American politics has degenerated to the point where presidential candidates are holding public rallies in Europe. How might George Washington or John Adams react? Still worse is the fawning, supine, cult-of-personality American press that is traveling en mass with Obama. As we all know, the press coverage will be embarrasingly laudatory - glowing to the point of glorification. So, we are inviting our readers...

After two decades of unconscionable increases in tuition and fees, colleges and universities increasingly are employing a new scam to swindle students and their parents out of whatever pennies they have left: the custom textbook. As reported in The Wall Street Journal, publishers make a few minor tweaks to a standard textbook, jack up the price and sell the special edition to the captive thousands who are required to buy it for required courses. For example, the University of Alabama requires all 4,000 of its freshmen to pay $59.35 for a spiral-bound special edition of "A Writer's Reference." The university's...

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A former San Jose City College biology professor is suing the college after she was fired for answering a student's question on the relationship between homosexuality and heredity.On June 21, 2007, June Sheldon, an adjunct professor teaching a human heredity course, answered a question about how heredity affects homosexual behavior by citing the class textbook and a well-known German scientist.  She noted that the scientist found a correlation between maternal stress and homosexual behavior in males but that the scientist's views are only one set of theories in the nature-versus-nurture debate...

Scientists in Britain have discovered a new global warming threat to marine life in Antarctica -- breakaway icebergs that destroy any life in their path. Shallow habitats of species such as giant sea spiders, Antarctic worms, sea urchins and corals face growing risk from icebergs as they tear up the sea floor, The Times of London reported Friday. The findings indicate climate change risks go beyond rising ocean temperatures, the British Antarctic Survey team said. Although near-shore ecosystems routinely take a pounding by icebergs, the destruction rate is rising as a warmer climate shrinks the winter sea ice that otherwise...

The roughest way to learn to swim is to be thrown in the deep end of the pool, and have to dog-paddle your way to the side if you want to keep breathing. My parents never did that to me, I know only one person who actually experienced that. But, metaphorically? Now that’s another matter. This column is about Clarence Thomas, Paul Carre, the University of Detroit, and the Boy Scout Motto. Begin with Clarence Thomas. I have just finished reading his autobiography, My Grandfather’s Son: A Memoir. It is a gripping tale that would be utterly unbelievable, except that...

French anti-terrorist officers are searching for 28 kilograms of Semtex explosive missing from a depot in the suburbs of the city of Lyon. Semtex is a powerful, odourless explosive which is difficult to detect and often used by terrorist groups. The theft was from a depot in a disused 19th century fort at Corbas in the southern suburbs of Lyon. The depot is used for storing explosives by a civil defence unit with the job of blowing up bombs and ammunition left over from the two world wars. Twenty-eight kilograms of Semtex was found to be missing in a routine...

Colombia's left-wing Farc rebels have kidnapped 10 people in the north-west of the country. Guerrillas forced a boat load of people travelling along the Atrato River in Choco province to the shore, before seizing the hostages. Kidnappings for ransom remain the main source of income for the Farc, along with drug trafficking. Earlier this month their best-known hostage, ex-presidential hopeful Ingrid Betancourt, was rescued by troops.

RUTBAH — A man of faith gave blessings to more than 10 families without fathers recently. Navy Lt. Raymond Rivers, a chaplain with 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, Regimental Combat Team 5, and Marines with Security Platoon, 2nd LAR packed up and delivered food and supplies to widows, July 16. “I’m very happy with this project and helping the widows of this city,” said Rivers, 43, from Anderson, S.C. “It’s an outstanding opportunity to help them establish themselves.” During the mission, the Marines loaded a group of Iraqi Police trucks with supplies for transportation to the city council building here....

For Immediate ReleaseOffice of the Press SecretaryJuly 19, 2008 President's Radio Address   President's Radio Address  Audio  En Español THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. This is a challenging time for families across our nation. I know many families are worried about rising prices at the pump and declining home values. So this week my Administration took steps to help address both these challenges. To help address the pressure on gasoline prices, my Administration took action to clear the way for environmentally responsible offshore exploration of key parts of the Outer Continental Shelf, or OCS. Experts believe that these areas of the OCS could...

ORGANIZING TACTICS Alinsky has a very simple method for preparing your people tactically. He advises that you go into little battles you can win first, in order to build up your people's confidence. He advises that later you make alliances that get you bigger battles. In fact, this is very much akin to what he talks about in the training of your people. His primary tactic is to get into action to stoke the brush fires, to get your organization alive, and keep it alive. Again he says everything is in the action — the organizer must use his imagination...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Three more juvenile illegal immigrant drug dealers sent by San Francisco to group homes hundreds of miles from the city have escaped... The three were among the offenders previously protected from possible deportation under a long-standing city policy against handing over juvenile illegal immigrants to federal authorities, even those convicted of felonies. Chronicle stories about the policy prompted a national outcry, and Mayor Gavin Newsom rescinded it earlier this month. Newsom acted shortly after eight Honduran juveniles convicted of dealing crack on the city's streets walked away from unlocked group homes in San Bernardino County, where the...

Bridging the Abyss Why a lot of newspapers aren’t going to survive By Charles Layton Charles Layton (charlesmary@hotmail.com) is an AJR senior contributing writer. Mark Potts is a consultant, based in Washington, D.C., who hires out to newspaper Web sites, dotcoms and the like. He was a reporter and editor (Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, San Francisco Examiner) in the '70s and '80s, that golden age for newspapers before the Internet came along to spoil the party. Ad revenue — four-fifths of a daily paper's income — grew by double digits during many of those years. Last summer, Potts and some...

Price of gas got you crying at the pump? Is it eating into your household budget? Well, get used to it. That's the word on the streets as the price of a gallon of gasoline soars to record highs. With regional differentials pushing the price much higher in some places, drivers and small-business owners are finding it hard to cope. But which states' motorists get the best deal, and in which states do drivers pay the most to fill-up? Here come the numbers Alaska has the highest gas prices in the nation, with a gallon of regular gasoline at $4.623,...

Drivers could see gasoline prices below $4 by Labor Day, and even a nickel decline within days, after oil prices fell again Friday. In the last four days, oil prices have dropped more than $16 a barrel, as the market looked optimistically at calm weather, U.S.-Iran negotiations, failing bank rescues and lower demand for gasoline. Light, sweet crude for August delivery fell 41 cents Friday to settle at $128.88 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. A week before, it hit its trading record of more than $147. "Perhaps by Labor Day we could see gasoline prices back below...

p> WAFB TV Channel 9, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana pulled out all the stops for this ridiculous report claiming that "some women" in the Pelican State are resorting to working in strip clubs because gasoline is so expensive. To prove it, WAFB found one woman that said so. I'd say that clinches this as "fact," then, wouldn't you? In typical sensationalistic news fashion, WAFB TV assumes that because gas is more expensive, women across the state are throwing away their morals to work as strippers. During these tough economic times, many people are struggling to make ends meet. The city's...

I believe comedic change is possible. Since the New Yorker dropped a bum joke on its cover this week, comedians have appeared on every news outlet to whine about how hard it is to make fun of Barack Obama. Really? They have an arsenal of jokes to use against a 71-year-old ex-POW cancer survivor and Obama is too touchy a subject? I'm here to help. I called some comedian friends to compile a guide to making fun of Obama. The consensus is there's not yet one standout attribute to pound away on (McCain is old! Clinton cheats on his wife!...

Sydney has never seen anything like it since the Olympics. Not even that event, however, could match the spectacle of a papal ‘boatacade’ gliding past the bridge and the opera house to deliver Pope Benedict into the cheering embrace of 150,000 young people from around the world. The Pope’s arrival at World Youth Day had a theatrical quality worthy of the media world in which today’s young people live. By contrast, his message to them was delivered in a self-effacing, direct manner, making clear that the Pope refuses to cast himself as a rock star; he is a teacher and...

A bare majority of California voters would continue to allow gay marriage, according to a new poll released Friday. The Field Poll of 672 likely voters found that 51% oppose Proposition 8, which would amend the state Constitution to define marriage as only between a man and woman. Forty-two percent of voters support the November ballot measure. Poll director Mark DiCamillo said the results indicate a substantial change among voters since 2000, when Proposition 22, a similar ballot measure, was approved with 61% of the vote. Proposition 22 and other laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation were...

-- snip -- Complaints about privacy and fairness from the government's former chief scientist, Sir David King, and the Nobel peace prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will be upheld on almost all counts, the Guardian has learned. But it is understood that Channel 4 will still claim victory because the ultimate verdict on a separate complaint about accuracy, which contained 131 specific points and ran to 270 pages, will find that it did not breach the regulator's broadcasting code and did not materially mislead viewers...

WASHINGTON -- A 13-year-old boy was killed, seven people shot and a person stabbed within minutes of each other in a spate of violence in the Trinidad section of NE shortly after midnight Saturday. Police said between midnight and four in the morning a person was also stabbed and another shot citywide. DC Police Inspector Rodney Parks says the shootings appear to have taken place in connection with three attempted robberies. Police are looking for a gold or metallic colored car, possibly a Dodge Intrepid, spotted at each crime scene. The police have no suspects in custody at this time....

An illegal immigrant charged with killing two people in a South Richmond car crash now faces a $2.3 million wrongful-death suit filed by the family of one of the victims. The administrators of the estate of Kathryn L. Jones, who was fatally injured in the May 24 wreck, also has named as a defendant the construction company for which Carmen Alejandro Garcia-Hernandez was employed. Garcia-Hernandez was driving a pickup truck registered to R.J. Biringer Construction Co. Inc., whose owner, Ronald J. Biringer, is under federal indictment for transporting illegal immigrants. Richmond police allege that Garcia-Hernandez was driving the truck when...

The Washington D.C. City Council has created so many hoops for handgun owners to jump through before they can exercise their Second Amendment rights, they may require legal counsel just to identify what the hoops are.  This sorry state of affairs is much to the satisfaction of The Washington Post, which called for just such an obstructionist policy in an editorial.  At least one of those hoops is illegal, according to the Supreme Court, but a Post news story spun that fact as the opinion of “opponents of the handgun ban.”  Is editorial policy coloring the news?The Washington Post is...

Six years ago, when I was a reporter at New Times LA, I’d written several stories about Scientology (Los Angeles is one of its headquarters), and I was about to uncork the longest one yet—a 7,000 word piece about an embarrassing, $8 million defeat Scientology had just suffered, when the weekly paper suddenly folded. That unpublished story has been sitting in storage ever since. Fast forward to 2008, and the world of reporting on Scientology has changed radically, thanks in part to the lunacy of Tom Cruise, but also in part to a worldwide, leaderless movement that calls itself Anonymous....

Despite the pessimistic headlines on energy, a beneficial long-term trend is underway called decarbonization. In his 2005 book, The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century, writer James Howard Kunstler declared that when peak oil hits, “We will have to downscale every activity of everyday life, from farming, to schooling, to retail trade….Epidemic disease and faltering agriculture will synergize with energy scarcities to send nations reeling.” Nobel Prize winner Al Gore has said that global warming will likely result in “a string of terrible catastrophes.” And in his Academy Award–winning movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” he implies that...