Free Republic

Vittorio Luzzati/National Portrait Gallery, London Hedy Lamarr, the movie star who is less well known as an inventor. n 1933, at age 19, she swam in the nude in the notorious Czech film "Ecstasy." Often called the most beautiful woman in the world, she married badly — to a domineering Austrian munitions manufacturer — and escaped by drugging the maid and climbing out a window. She made her way to Hollywood, where she starred in movies with Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart. Then there is the less known chapter of her life. In World War II, she...

She still hasn’t said she’s running, but Katherine Harris may get drafted into the race for the U.S. Senate seat Democrat Bob Graham is vacating. According to a recent St. Petersburg/Miami Herald poll, 29 percent of Floridian Republicans back Harris, putting her ahead of both Bill McCollum, with 16 percent, and former HUD Secretary Mel Martinez, who pulled 11 percent. However, 38 percent were still undecided, leaving the Republican side of the race anyone’s to win. Martinez recently shared a stage with his potential rival and George W. Bush when the president signed the American Dream Down Payment Act, which...

Cyber women test what's real By Jo Twist BBC News Online technology reporter Software cyberbabes, created by powerful computers, sophisticated modelling packages and active imaginations are getting extremely human-like. Rene Morel's 3D model has a very human face Virtual cyberbabes are used in advertising campaigns, hit shoot-em-up games, and the pop industry, from Lara Croft to virtual pop idols, T-Babe and Diki or DK-96. Some of the best 3D models around are currently on show at an exhibition which has just opened in London called Perfectly Real: Women in Bits and Bytes. But they raise questions about what people...

Janice Rule, an actress in film and onstage who became a psychoanalyst late in her career, died on Friday at her home in Manhattan. She was 72. Born in Norwood, Ohio, Ms. Rule studied ballet and began dancing in Chicago nightclubs in her teens. She soon attracted attention in Hollywood and made her film debut in 1951 in "Goodbye, My Fancy," with Joan Crawford and Robert Young. She was pictured on the cover of Life magazine on Jan. 8, 1951, as a rising young actress. Her films in the 1950's included "Starlift," "Holiday for Sinners," "A Woman's Devotion" and "Bell,...

<p>GRADY LITTLE'S future is not the only big decision looming for the owners of the Boston Red Sox. What will they do about Fenway Park? After the soul-crushing loss to the New York Yankees, the game of baseball -- and the second-guessing of Little -- take priority in Red Sox Nation. But the business of baseball can never be far behind. Long after fans learn whether Little will be judged for a season of decisions or one decision to leave Pedro Martinez on the mound in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, the owners will be grappling with a decision about Fenway's future.</p>

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THE perfume diet may be the next big thing after researchers found men think women weigh less if they smell of flowers than if they smell of pizza. In fact, a 10-year US study has found that pleasant, floral-spice perfume makes women appear 5kg lighter in the eyes of the opposite sex. Other odours, including butterscotch, cigarette smoke, grapefruit and pepperoni pizza don't have the same effect. The floral-spice scent acted as "the olfactory equivalent to vertical lines", said Chicago neurologist and psychiatrist Alan Hirsch, who presented his findings at a meeting of the Association for Chemoreception Sciences in Florida....

Shock and awe campaign routs liberals Ann Coulter Liberals are no longer a threat to the nation. The new media have defeated them with free speech – the very freedom these fifth columnists hide behind whenever their speech gets them in hot water with the American people. Today, the truth is instantly available on the Internet, talk radio and Fox News Channel. No wonder liberals accuse Matt Drudge of absurd sodomic acts, call Rush Limbaugh a "big fat idiot," and say "really stupid people" watch Fox News Channel – as anti-war actress Janeane Garofalo said between assuring us that...