Free Republic

AUTHOR Eric C Bartholomew has photographed lots of animals – elephants, tigers, wild boar – but none were as tricky to capture as Thanet's albino squirrel. The 67-year-old scribbler, of St Lawrence Chase, Ramsgate, spotted the white wonder in a park close to Ramsgate's Royal Esplanade on Monday, April 16. Wildlife experts estimate that the odds of a pure white squirrel being born are one in 100,000. Mr Bartholomew, a safari lover, chased the rare rodent around the park for 20 minutes before he got his shot at about 7am. He said: "I was in the right place at the...

They are marauding gangs of troublemakers who set fire to cars, cut electrical wires and cause power outages, evading capture by scaling walls and climbing trees. But while the Queens co-op residents being terrorized by the daredevil vandals say they know exactly who their tormentors are, they insist that they’re helpless in stopping the crime wave — because the suspects are sex-happy squirrels. “It’s like Occupy Wall Street here,” lamented Bob Friedrich, president of the under-siege co-op at Glen Oaks Village. “It’s gotten worse in the past six months. We’re getting calls that they are in people’s apartments.”

Note: Photo included. SNIPPET: "Bout and American-born pal Richard Chichakli were accused of creating a new business, Samar Airlines, which they thought was clean of any connection to their own bloody dealings. Starting in the summer of 2007, Samar Airlines started making deals for airplanes and crews to ferry contraband between the United States and Tajikistan, the indictment said." SNIPPET: "The Russian-born Bout is accused of wiring $1.7 million from bank accounts in Kazakhstan, Cyprus, Russia through banks in New York City and Salt Lake City to finance the scheme." SNIPPET: "Bout, who is accused of supplying weapons to real...

A woman 'rescued' from an attack by a group of girls, by London mayor Boris Johnson, has spoken about the incident. Franny Armstrong called for help as she was surrounded and pushed by the girls, one of whom had an iron bar, in Camden, north London, on Monday night. The mayor, who was cycling past, stopped and chased the girls down the street, calling them: "Oiks".

There is an old Russian fable, with different versions in other countries, about two poor peasants, Ivan and Boris. The only difference between them was that Boris had a goat and Ivan didn't. One day, Ivan came upon a strange-looking lamp and, when he rubbed it, a genie appeared. She told him that she could grant him just one wish, but it could be anything in the world. Ivan said, "I want Boris' goat to die." Variations on this story in other countries suggest that this tells us something about human beings, not just Russians. It may tell us something...

Most cowboys go to great lengths to keep from losing their rope. And yet that same cowboy might rope a freight train, a four-wheeler or a polar bear without a second thought. That thought, of course is, 'How do I get my rope back?' Randy and Roy were makin' a final circle on a big ranch north of the Anaconda Mountains. They were down to tracking singles. One set of tracks lead them up a little canyon. The snow was a foot deep and the footprints were well-defined punctures in the snow, not the foot draggin' bovine kind. It didn't...

Mayor to end Venezuelan oil deal Boris Johnson will not renew an oil deal with Venezuela which provides cheap fuel for London's buses once the agreement ends later this year. The mayor of London said half-price bus and tram fares for 250,000 Londoners on income support, which were also funded by the deal, would still be honoured. Mr Johnson said he thought many Londoners were uncomfortable with how the scheme was funded. Former mayor Ken Livingstone signed the deal at City Hall in February. In return, a team of officials from the Greater London Authority agreed to work in Venezuela...

I would like to introduce you to the new Conservative mayor of London, Boris Johnson. He is remarkable. He is unique. His political success is based on the oft-repeated pratfall. Yes, Johnson has committed every political sin and is now at the helm of the most important city in Europe, and the one best beloved by Americans. In the age of the technocrat, Johnson is more like something out of a P.G. Wodehouse novel. For more than a decade, the British media have been regaled by Johnson's “scrapes.” For example, he was demoted in the Conservative Party from a position...

Boris Johnson has been elected Mayor of London, adding to Labour's misery after disastrous local elections. The Conservative candidate beat Ken Livingstone with Liberal Democrat Brian Paddick in third place. Mr Johnson polled 1,168,738 votes to Mr Livingstone's 1,028,966. After second preferences were allocated, Mr Johnson achieved around 53% to Mr Livingstone's 47%. The result put further pressure on Prime Minister Gordon Brown after his party suffered its worst council election results in four decades. After the result was announced, the new mayor thanked his team and praised his opponents, particularly Mr Livingstone who he described as a "very considerable...

US tells Iran to back down after Gulf skirmish By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent Last Updated: 1:53am GMT 08/01/2008 The White House has told Iran that it risked provoking "a dangerous incident" after a weekend skirmish brought the two nations to the brink of conflict. US naval commanders were about to fire on a group of Iranian attack boats after being challenged at the mouth of the Gulf on Sunday, the Pentagon has disclosed. The Persian Gulf is the scene of tensions between Iran and the US Three US navy ships were targeted by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Navy as...

US Navy commanders were moments away from firing on Iranian attack ships during a skirmish in the Straits of Hormuz, it has emerged. Damien McElory: American armada prepares to take on IranA Pentagon spokesman revealed that five Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy boats harrassed and provoked three US ships in the narrow waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf at the weekend.   The Persian Gulf is the scene of tensions between Iran and the US The Iranian craft came within 200 yards of the US vessels, which were sailing in international waters. The Iranian provocations included disregarding warnings...

1- According to IRNA, the official Islamic Republic news agency, the national Police chief has implicitly verified the news about the confiscation of a number of squirrels, equipped with eavesdropping devices, on the Iranian borders. He has declined to give any more details, but, reportedly, when asked about the confiscation of 14 spy squirrels, he stated, “I have heard about it, but I do not have precise information”. IRNA adds, “These squirrels were equipped by foreign intelligence services, but were captured two weeks ago by the Police”. 2- The Iranian blogger Gameeron reports that he has heard on a state-run...

AS I walked behind Boris Yeltsin’s coffin at Novodevichy Cemetery on Wednesday, I found myself thinking about the man I worked with closely for nearly eight years and the role he played in changing the world, mostly for the better. Every time I met with him, Mr. Yeltsin left no doubt that he had two objectives above all others. The first was to make sure that the Russian people never again had to live under communism, or autocratic ultranationalism. The second was to form a solid, lasting partnership between a democratic Russia and the West. On the big issues that...

BORIS Yeltsin, who engineered the final collapse of the Soviet Union and pushed Russia to embrace democracy and a market economy as the country's first post-Communist president, has died. He was 76.

Friend and former co-worker, boris, passed away the weekend of 7 April at age 55 and was laid to rest in the Hollywood Hills on 16 April. He maintained a relatively anonymous existence here at FR since signing on 19 July 1998 and most recently posted on 29 March. He was an accomplished rocket scientist with an MS in mechanical engineering from MIT (1975) and BS in mechanical engineering from Cornell and was involved in many programs throughout his career from directed energy systems (e.g. lasers) to advanced propulsion systems such as nuclear thermal rocket engines, Peacekeeper Stage IV, various...

AS THE SEEMINGLY ENDLESS SPIDERWEB OF LIES SPUN BY former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV unravels, the media has gone out of its way to question the credibility of…Karl Rove. Despite Rove’s demonstrable non-leak of Valerie Plame’s non-secret identity, the dogs continue to gather, hungry for a second term scandal, while the Wilsons’ blatant self-promotion erodes whatever basis they had for a story in the first place. Perhaps Joe Wilson’s two biggest whoppers were his claim to have spoken out because of his deep, non-partisan commitment to “truth,” and his inconsolable remorse that his wife’s closely guarded anonymity had become...

AS THE SEEMINGLY ENDLESS SPIDERWEB OF LIES SPUN BY former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV unravels, the media has gone out of its way to question the credibility of…Karl Rove. Despite Rove’s demonstrable non-leak of Valerie Plame’s non-secret identity, the dogs continue to gather, hungry for a second term scandal, while the Wilsons’ blatant self-promotion erodes whatever basis they had for a story in the first place. Perhaps Joe Wilson’s two biggest whoppers were his claim to have spoken out because of his deep, non-partisan commitment to “truth,” and his inconsolable remorse that his wife’s closely guarded anonymity had become...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., revealed Friday that two years ago he discussed the blown cover of CIA operative Valerie Plame with then CIA director George Tenet and that Tenet "was furious." Tenet promptly called the Justice Department to demand an investigation into who in the Bush administration leaked Plame's identity to columnist Robert Novak, Schumer said at a hearing held by House and Senate Democrats. Novak revealed Plame's identity in July 2003 in a column in which he said she played a key role in having her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, sent to Niger to investigate...

I am thinking about writing a letter to my local fish wrap because editor was crying about the Rove nonsense and the fact that Judith Miller was a hero to all for standing up for the press and their "First Amendment Rights" and protection of confidential sources. The jest of my letter is going to focus on why we shouldn't feel sorry for Ms. Miller and the rest of the press because they (the liberal press) are the first ones to applaud when the First Amendment protections to free speech during federal elections was attacked (McCain/Feingold) and when a court...

In journalism, the definition of “leak” suggests that it is applied to government officials who purposely give reporters secret or confidential information in order to publicize something they do not like so that it can be defeated before being voted upon. “Outing” a CIA agent is only a crime if the agent is under cover overseas or has been during the past five years. This law was created to prevent the assassinations of CIA agents on foreign shores as had been caused by Philip Agee in 1978 who listed CIA agents undercover in foreign cities, causing the murder of some....

The buzz is that all of the fun-loving Dims are having "Rovegate" parties to trash Karl Rove and GWB over the CIA outing controversy. We need to show we can have fun too......by having a Wilson-Plame Look-Alike Contest. Post here your choices for the look-alikes.

Was it really a secret that Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA? It's the top story in the Washington Post this morning as well as in many other media outlets. Who leaked the fact that the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV worked for the CIA? What also might be worth asking: "Who didn't know?" I believe I was the first to publicly question the credibility of Mr. Wilson, a retired diplomat sent to Niger to look into reports that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium for his nuclear-weapons program. On July 6, Mr. Wilson wrote an...

Now I read that Matt Cooper’s (the journalist who received Rove’s so-called ‘leak’) wife is Mandy Grunwald; media consultant and campaign advisor to both Bill and Hillary Clinton......

David Corn responding to Clifford May's column in National Review. Blah, blah, blah. Unconvincing. Those of you following this closely will want to read it for clues, but I'm only going to post what (to me) was the big news: Here's another fact that may interest anyone who thinks May might have a point:Number of times I've been contacted by Patrick Fitzgerald, interviewed or contacted by his investigators, and called before the grand jury: 0. What the h*ll is this? David Corn published an article only two days after Novak's column that exposed Plame in far greater detail than Novak...

An interesting post by Cliff May: "This morning, I have a piece up elsewhere on NRO showing that The Nation’s David Corn--not syndicated columnist Bob Novak--was the first to reveal that Valerie Plame was an undercover operative. It further suggests that David did so based on information provided to him by none other than Joseph C. Wilson IV. While working on that piece, I had an exchange with David and, with his permission, I thought I’d share that with you. Dear David: I have a question--one you may not be willing to answer but I’m curious so let me try:...

We — non-Muslims — cannot solve the problem; we cannot brainwash them out of their fundamentalist beliefs. The Islamicists last week horribly and irrefutably asserted the supreme importance of that faith, overriding all worldly considerations, and it will take a huge effort of courage and skill to win round the many thousands of British Muslims who are in a similar state of alienation, and to make them see that their faith must be compatible with British values and with loyalty to Britain. That means disposing of the first taboo, and accepting that the problem is Islam. Islam is the problem....

The Liberty Amendment AMENDMENT 28 1. The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution is hereby altered to read in its entirety, “The right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms Shall Not Be Infringed.” 2. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is abolished. The regulatory duties of the Bureau relating to Alcohol will be transferred to the FDA. 3. The Fourteenth Amendment to this Constitution is hereby repealed. Citizenship shall depend upon parentage; if one parent is a citizen, the child is a citizen; if neither is, then the child is not. Naturalization is still open as...

Applicants for permanent residence must understand Bulgarian, Parliament rulesParliament has made two moves in the past week strongly affecting the lives of foreigners in Bulgaria: on the one hand, giving the go-ahead for constitutional amendments to allow certain categories of foreigners to buy land, but on the other hand introducing knowledge of Bulgarian as a qualification for permanent residence.The approval at second reading of the amendments to the Foreigners Act regarding conditions of granting permanent residence introduced the mandatory knowledge of Bulgarian, and for those seeking permanent residence on the basis of investment, raising the minimum stake to $500 000....

Ukraine will hold a rerun of its presidential runoff election Dec. 26. Like the original presidential election between candidates Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich and opposition Viktor Yushchenko, this election is sure to cause controversy in Ukraine. Summary Ukraine will hold a rerun of its presidential runoff election Dec. 26. Like the original presidential election between candidates Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich and opposition Viktor Yushchenko, this election is sure to cause controversy in Ukraine. Analysis After the Ukrainian Supreme Court's decision to nullify the country's hotly contested presidential runoff election, the country will hold a rerun of the election Dec....

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

I'm back from a 2-week stay in the hospital. Under house arrest for six weeks while they pump Vancomycin into my veins. Osteomeyelitis caused by a podiatrist visit; I'm a diabetic. I'll be on FR with somewhat reduced frequency. Regards to all and maybe I'll keep my left big toe. --Boris

Yeltsin: I had five heart attacks The former Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, has admitted having five heart attacks while in office. Mr Yeltsin often disappeared from public view at critical moments during his presidency. His most notable absence came shortly before he was re-elected in 1996 when he faced a strong challenge from the Communist Party. At the time, Russian officials said Mr Yeltsin had flu, or was still working on documents. "While I was president, I survived five heart attacks," Mr Yeltsin told the RIA Novosti news agency. In 1997, as his appearances grew rarer and health more critical,...

On the "new posts to you" it takes all day to load the page because of all of the graphics. Can't you just list the topics???

Oct. 18 — Bacteria found in a 2,000-year-old piece of cheese could be the final evidence that this food was a continuous source of infectious disease in the ancient Roman world. According to a study published in a recent issue of the Journal of Infection, a tiny piece of cheese containing disease bacteria was carbonized in the volcanic eruption that one night in late August, 79 A.D. covered Pompeii and the nearby towns of Herculaneum and Stabiae with nine to 20 feet of hot ash and pumice. About 250 people fled to the beach, trying in vain to escape the...