Free Republic

Baghdad. In a one of a kind military operation the US army occupied 7 mosques yesterday in the Western Iraqi town of Ramadi and turned the mosques into barracks, the Iraqi News Agency INA reported. According to information, the American soldiers have taken the praying out of the mosques, closed them and banned access to the mosques within a range of 1 kilometer.

Son of The English Patient: Boring "Constant Gardener" is Dreadful, Far-Left, White Guilt Drivel By Debbie Schlussel If you were thinking of seeing "Constant Gardener," when it arrives in theaters, next week, save your money. That is, unless you are into movies where the murderous, evil White man and the big bad pharmaceutical companies they run are the reason for all poverty, illness, despair, and death in Africa. That's the Cliff's Notes version of this celluloid piece of crap: Western White Man, Evil; Innocent African Black Man, Angelic. The stupid, liberal, noblesse oblige crowd who attended the screening just loved...

Mr. Rove: Your miracle came true. After June 21 the daylight did become shorter. However, the temperature here in Boulder City, Nevada became hotter. I understand The President is in Scotland to fix the Global Warming Problem, while, at the same time, getting rid of AIDS in Africa. Please tell him to fix the temperature in Nevada first. It is 108 degrees here today. Perhaps, The Persident could move the equator further south, or the Tropic of Cancer. Maybe he could move the Arctic Circle further south. I used to live in Alaska and it was real cold. Take care...

SUMMARY: Boosting people's sense of self-worth has become a national preoccupation. Yet surprisingly, researchshows that such efforts are of little value in fostering academic progress or preventing undesirable behavior. People intuitively recognize the importance of self-esteem to their psychological health, so it isn't particularly remarkable that most of us try to protect and enhance it in ourselves whenever possible. What is remarkable is that attention to self-esteem has become a communal concern, at least for Americans, who see a favorable opinion of oneself as the central psychological source from which all manner of positive outcomes spring. The corollary, that low...

Even after the presidential election, America’s media solons and disgruntled former government officials—such as Richard Clarke—continue to get fawning coverage for every pronouncement on the basic harmlessness of Saddam’s Iraq. We’re supposed to accept the idea that Saddam was just a small-time monster, too weak and incompetent to harm a far-away America. But wouldn’t it be revealing if our intelligence community actually had to answer some hard questions about Ramzi Yousef and the annihilation of TWA Flight 800—the second-greatest mass-murder in American history. The public would then hear of how Yousef worked for Saddam Hussein, and how Iraq's dictator was...

American internet link to Ken Bigley torture videosby SHARON CHURCHER, Mail on Sunday 11:44am 17th October 2004Terror: Hostage Ken Bigley blindfolded in Iraq The brutal videos of British hostage Ken Bigley begging for his life were distributed on the internet by a radical Islamic website hosted by an American firm with ties to the Bush administration. The Mail on Sunday began investigating the site, hostinganime, after it showed images of Mr Bigley being held in a cage, shortly before he was decapitated by the Al Qaeda cell known as Tahid wal Jihad. The site posted links to footage in...

In the UK Sunday Times of May 16, 2004, appeared an article titled, "Top scientist gives backing to astrology," written by Jonathan Leake, who plays at being their Science Editor. "The planets may control your future after all," he wrote. This statement was inspired by a member of the Royal Astronomical Society, Dr. Percy Seymour, author of a new book, "The Scientific Proof of Astrology" — are we surprised? — who says he believes that "human brain development may be affected by the Earth's magnetic field, especially during growth in the womb." In his book, Seymour suggests that the Earth's...

,Company says quote from official misstates policy on merchandise. Pottery Barn would like to make one thing perfectly clear: If you break it, you don't have to buy it. The 174-store home furnishings chain unexpectedly found itself in the news over the weekend as author Bob Woodward released his new book about the Iraq war, Plan of Attack, and began talking about it. Mr. Woodward quotes Secretary of State Colin Powell as warning President Bush that invading Iraq would produce a "Pottery Barn rule" – which Mr. Powell defined as "you break it, you own it." The term was news...

A skin mag claimed yesterday it has pictures of Iraqi POW Jessica Lynch frolicking topless with male soldiers before she went off to war. A spokesman for the 20-year-old Army private - the subject of Sunday's TV movie on NBC that drew 14.9 million viewers - called the plan by Hustler magazine to publish the purported photos "unspeakable." "Leave it to [Hustler publisher] Larry Flynt to do something like this," said Paul Bogaards of Alfred Knopf, publisher of "I Am A Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story," which is being released today. "Jessica Lynch was left for dead and left...

NEW DELHI — Once bitter foes, India and Israel plan to strengthen their defense, intelligence and trade ties when Ariel Sharon attends a summit here today in the first official visit by an Israeli prime minister. Although Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Sharon are expected to sign a joint declaration on drug trafficking, the environment and other issues, the most significant deals are likely to be negotiated behind the scenes. Flush from a booming economy, India has gone on an arms-buying spree and wants to purchase advanced systems from Israel. At the top of the shopping list is...

DEMS' DESPERATE DECEPTION Apples & Oranges: Democrats Wrongly Confuse Military Salary With Imminent Danger Pay · Wrong On Both Counts _____________________________________________________________________ APPLES: IMMINENT DANGER COMPENSATION WILL NOT BE REDUCED Undersecretary Of Defense For Personnel And Readiness David Chu Confirms Compensation Will Not Be Reduced.  "I'd just like very quickly to put to rest what I understand has been a burgeoning rumor that somehow we are going to reduce compensation for those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.  That is not true. We are not going to reduce their compensation. · What I'm saying on the record for Iraq and Afghanistan, absolutely yes,...

Empire on the cheap Pentagon's sneak attack on soldiers' combat pay News-Journal editorial Last update: 15 August 2003 Speaking to cadets at the Citadel in South Carolina on Sept. 23, 1999, Candidate George Bush sounded outraged. "Thousands of members of the armed forces are on food stamps," he said. "Many others in uniform get Army Emergency Relief or depend on their parents. This is not the way that a great nation should reward courage and idealism. It is ungrateful, it is unwise, and it is unacceptable." Bush liked that last line so much that he repeated it, word for word,...

  United States Department of DefenseNews ReleaseOn the web: http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2003/nr20030814-0368.htmlMedia contact: media@defenselink.mil or +1 (703) 697-5131 Public contact: http://www.dod.mil/faq/comment.html or +1 (703) 428-0711   No. 600-03 IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 14, 2003 DoD Statement on Family Separation Allowance and Imminent Danger Pay In April, after the President's Budget was submitted, Congress authorized an increase in both the Family Separation Allowance (on a worldwide basis) and Imminent Danger Pay and legislated that these increases would expire on Sept. 30, 2003.  The department is aware of the problem that would result for those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan if these allowances were...

(note hammer and sickle on chest!) Joseph Stalin and Superman would seem to have little in common except their shared nickname, "the Man of Steel." Stalin was a brutal dictator who murdered millions, while Superman is the mythical embodiment of truth, justice and the American way. Yet in Superman: Red Son, a new three-part comic book series, the first of which has just been released by DC Comics, writer Mark Millar posits an alternative universe where Superman grew up on a collective farm in the Ukraine in the 1930s rather than in the idyllic Midwest town of Smallville, U.S.A. Indoctrinated...

Tomahawk cruise missile TARGETING Saddam Hussein in his presidential bunker will require a concerted attack using 16 cruise missiles directed to the same spot, its designer said yesterday. Karl Esser claimed the Iraqi dictator was "100 per cent safe" in the steel and concrete structure buried 100 metres below Baghdad. He said: "I am absolutely certain that Saddam Hussein will not be taken out by a rocket attack on his main palace in Baghdad as long as he remains underground in the bunker I designed." Mr Esser, 45, of Munich, whose grandmother built the bunker which protected Hitler from...

The fight against apathy rages in our back yard By BILL MAXWELL, Times Columnist © St. Petersburg Times published February 23, 2003 Dissent protects democracy. -- Antiwar slogan at Eckerd College Many baby boomers, of which I am one, who came of age during the turbulent 1960s -- when the Vietnam War raged -- have been appalled until recently at the apathy smothering many of today's university campuses as the nation poises yet again to enter a faraway military clash. Where, boomers were asking, is the campus peace movement? Why are so many students silent over an event that could...

What Andrew Jackson can teach Al Gore about beating Bush in 2004. Al Gore wants a rematch. Pundits are already discounting his chances at beating George W. Bush in 2004—not without good reason, given his reported 19 percent favorable rating. But a historical fact bodes well for Gore: On six occasions, a defeated presidential candidate ran four years later against the man who beat him—and four times the challenger won. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson ousted President John Adams in their rematch. Like father, like son: President John Quincy Adams lost to Andrew Jackson in their 1828 reprise. William Henry Harrison...

McBride for governor Bill McBride is the candidate best suited to forge the broad alliances needed to deal responsibly with the challenges facing Florida. © St. Petersburg Times published October 20, 2002 Even allowing for the usual campaign hyperbole, Republican Gov. Jeb Bush and his Democratic challenger, Bill McBride , paint starkly different pictures of the state of our state. According to Bush, things are rosy. The state's budget is fundamentally sound. Our schools and social services are being adequately funded. Our students are improving at a record pace, thanks to his FCAT school grading system. Our state's economy is...

In 2001 the National Science Foundation surveyed 1,500 people nationwide and found that 77% believed that "increased carbon dioxide and other gases released into the atmosphere will, if unchecked, lead to global warming ..." Yet half of those polled believed that humans and dinosaurs co-existed on Earth, despite the scientific fact that the dinosaurs went extinct tens of millions of years before the earliest hominids appeared. Worse, only 22% of the respondents understood what a molecule - for example, carbon dioxide - is. As in the case of the belief by many that dinosaurs and early humans co-existed, public opinion...

Just a short note commenting on the fact that more food is produced now than ever before in human history. While that may be true, it is misleading: Food is very unevenly distributed. In North America, Europe, Australia, etc. (the Western World), we waste enough food every day to feed all of the world's hungry. So when people contend that "food scarcity" is due to bad economic policies, they are correct, except for that there are no food scarcities anymore. But because we have a globalized market, poorer countries (and people!) have a much harder time getting at the stuff....