Free Republic

<p>Greetings from Afghanistan. My apologies to you for taking so long to provide you with an update.</p> <p>Like all of you, we were saddened by the terrible news of the Space Shuttle Columbia accident and death of its crew. We broadcast that tragic news to every operations center within the Afghan theater and each operations center came to a complete standstill out of disbelief and horror. I've witnessed the grief of service members around me during this time of tragedy and it has been significant. And of course we remember the crew and their surviving family members in our prayers.</p>

It was a cold day in Arkansas. The forecast had rain and sleet on the way, and I was on my way to interview the Senate majority - oops, now minority - leader. Tom Daschle was in Little Rock to do his bit for fellow Democrat Blanche Lincoln, who was announcing her bid for re-election to the U.S. Senate. I had hunted up the speech Daschle had given when he voted for the congressional resolution authorizing the war looming ahead. And I had noted his statements since showed less, well, resolve. "We do know," he had said back in October,...

The text of an e-mail from NASA safety engineer Robert H. Daugherty to officials at Johnson Space Center two days before the Columbia disaster:Excerpted stuff here... The following are scenarios that might be possible ... and since there are so many of them, these are offered just to make sure that some things don't slip thru the cracks. ... I suspect many or all of these have been gone over by you guys already: 1. People talk about landing with two flat tires. ... I did too until this came up. If both tires blew up in the wheel well...

Milksop Nation By Jack Gordon Economist / Shell Writing Prize 2002 I like thunderstorms. My dog does not. I never feel so impressed by planet Earth, nor so satisfied to inhabit it, as when a proper thunderstorm is in progress. I like the rumbling approach of the great cumulus cloud, the booms and flashes, the way you can actually feel the air pressure drop in the moments just before the first wallop of wind arrives. I like storms even though one tried to kill me a few years ago, late at night on a 36-foot sloop with its full mainsail...

On January 8th, 2003, ORVILLE, the mouse, has done successfully two historical flights as a test pilot of the Lifter "Maximus". ORVILLE is now the 1st Worldwide "Electronaut " pilot which has done a flight aboard a propellantless electrokinetic craft. ORVILLE's weight is 24 grammes, it is a very nice and cool mouse. The Lifter "Maximus" is launched successfully with the 1st "Electronaut" on board... ORVILLE has done two flights aboard the Lifter "Maximus" and is still very active...

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- A man who beat his 79-year-old mother to death, cut her open and ate some of her heart was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in prison. Joey Cala, 41, had pleaded guilty Monday to murder in the 2001 death of Lydia Cala, a 76-pound retired teacher and church volunteer. According to Cala's sister, he wanted their mother's money. But there was no indication the inheritance amounted to much. The woman lived in a modest, one-story house. Cala's attorney, Robert Ford, had been planning an insanity defense before reaching a plea bargain that spared Cala a...

This just in!! The Supreme Court has ruled that there cannot be a nativity scene in Washington, DC this Christmas. This isn't for any religious constitutional reason. They simply have not been able to find three wise men and a virgin in the nation's capitol. There was no problem, however, finding enough asses to fill the stable.

Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage Due to an extensive public relations campaign orchestrated by an industry trade organization, the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), a rash of newspaper articles have been appearing since early 1997, claiming desperate labor shortages in the information-technology field. Frantic employers complain that they cannot fill many open positions for computer programmers. Yet readers of the articles proclaiming a shortage would be perplexed if they also knew that Microsoft only hires 2% of its applicants for software positions, and that this rate is typical in the industry. Software employers, large or...

Two years ago the media printed out a map showing the counties that went for Bush and the counties that went for Gore. They gave Bush the red counties. It has been rumored that the color selection was because blue was given to the incumbents. Republicans are now the incumbents. So we get blue. This is an open request for any Freeper with a graphics art package who has the time and resources to read in a map of the US counties, and to access the mapping of the county votes. Then, make sure that the Republicans get BLUE!

Brief on the anarchist protest in Chicago. Who's Who in the crowd: The Young Democratic Socialists.Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade.Residents of Cabrini-Green.The Industrial Workers of the World.The Green Party.The Pink Bloque.United Food Workers Local 881.United Electrical Workers Local 179. Some of the signs carried: Get out of agriculture, you morons.Wal-Mart is a bad neighbor.Globalization equals neo-colonialism.People above profits.They exploit, oppress, control. They are the imperialist elitist fascists..I'm here to meet chicks. Some of the "chants": "Don't the cops look so dumb, look at us we're having fun.""E-V-I-L money can't save your soul from hell. You're evil, yeah yeah, you're evil." Comments...

A person wrote a letter to the White House complaining about the treatment of a captive taken during the Afghanistan war. Attached is a copy of a letter they received back:

Cats and Dogs? My God, do we even have to compare the two? OBVIOUSLY, dogs are better. EVERYONE knows that. Let's go over the reasons why. Cat owner's = evil, Dog owners = good: Some well known cat owners include Saddam Hussein, Adolph Hitler, Mike Tyson and Martha Stewart. See, cat owners are B@STARDS!!! Well known dog owners? None other than Mother Theresa, Billy Graham, Martin Luther King, and even Jesus! Yes, even Jesus, son of God. How can you not like dogs better than cats when Jesus had one? What are you, SOME KIND OF HEATHEN!?!

The DOW is up almost 1,000 points over the last 4 sessions (at this time Tuesday morning.)

... (Exerpt because this is the Chicago Tribune) ... We did not learn after the attack on Pearl Harbor. We interned more than more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans just because of their ethnicity. We did not learn after World War II. German- and Italian-Americans were harassed because of their heritage. We did not learn from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. African-Americans are still being stopped solely because of the color of their skin.. And now we look suspiciously upon Muslims or Arab-Americans because of their faith and country of origin. Are we ever going to learn? Arsalan Tariq Iftikhar, Midwest communications...

The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom -- and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise. In the twenty-first century, only nations that share a commitment to protecting basic human rights and guaranteeing political and economic freedom will be able to unleash the potential of their people and assure their future prosperity....

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:11 & 1:12) And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the...

It was the fate of an American president raised in Midland, Texas, to come into a great burden, to prosecute the 21st century's first war in an Islamic world given to a malignant anti-Americanism...A country not particularly skilled in the ways of foreign chameleons and intriguers had no choice but to be pulled into the minefields and alleyways of strange places...there are vast multitudes out there, even in "friendly" lands, who winked at the terror and said in sly, insinuating ways that America had finally gotten its comeuppance...From Morocco to Indonesia, the people of Islam are 1.2 billion, a fifth...

From Bruce Ames (National Medal of Science Winner, biochemist, author of more than 450 scientific papers): (a) Diets low in fruits and vegetables cause cancer. (b) Pesticides allow fruits and vegetables to be produced more cheaply. (c) More poor people can afford fruits and vegetables if pesticides are used. Therefore - pesticides confer a public-health advantage that far outweighs any health risk posed by their use. A direct quote: "If the EPA eliminates all the pesticides, all it's going to do is increase the price of fruits and vegetables, and there will be more cancer."

Here is a solution. We, the citizens of the United States, collectively agree to get rid of the Al Sharpton/Jess Jackson etc. gang of race baiters on the issue of "slavery reparations" for once and for all. Here's how. We agree to pay up - with 40 acres and a gov't mule for each black family descended from slaves in America. Cost calculation: There are 640 acres in a square mile. 640/40 = 16 40 acre lots per square mile. Assume that all 35 million black americans are descended from American slaves (not true, but what the heck.) Assume further...

<p>Few naps have been as gratifying as the one I enjoyed during a recent Q & A with Florida gubernatorial candidate Janet Reno.</p> <p>That voice, so soft. That delivery, so smooth. All I needed to collapse into a Van Winkle slumber was a Heartbeat Bear tucked beneath my cheek.</p> <p>And this is the candidate who is going to animate the Democratic base? Whose constituents would be reposing in which morgue?</p>