Free Republic

A Kansas-based church that has blamed deaths in Iraq on U.S. tolerance of homosexuality has asked Gov. Christine Gregoire's office to approve a "Santa Claus will take you to hell" message to display among other religious statements in the Capitol's third-floor hallway. The first part of Westboro's proposed message, according to Spokesman-Review reporter Rich Roesler: "You'd better watch out, get ready to cry, You'd better go hide, I'm telling you why 'cuz Santa Claus will take you to hell. He is your favorite idol, you worship at his feet, but when you stand before your God He won't help you...

The Obama campaign has shattered all fund-raising records, raking in $458 million so far, with about half the bounty coming from donors who contribute $200 or less. Aides say that's an illustration of a truly democratic campaign. To critics, though, it can be an invitation for fraud and illegal foreign cash because donors giving individual sums of $200 or less don't have to be publicly reported. Consider the cases of Obama donors "Doodad Pro" of Nunda, N.Y., who gave $17,130, and "Good Will" of Austin, Texas, who gave more than $11,000—both in excess of the $2,300-per-person federal limit. In two...

HAYDEN, Idaho -- A man who believed he bore the "mark of the beast" used a circular saw to cut off one hand, then he cooked it in the microwave and called 911, authorities said. The man, in his mid-20s, was calm when Kootenai County sheriff's deputies arrived Saturday in this northern Idaho town. He was in protective custody in the mental health unit of Kootenai Medical Center. "It had been somewhat cooked by the time the deputy arrived," sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger said. "He put a tourniquet on his arm before, so he didn't bleed to death. That kind...

The state's treatment center on McNeil Island for its most predatory sex offenders is surrounded by concertina wire and security cameras. Mail and visitors are searched, and the staff can't even bring iPods to work. But that hasn't kept some men held at the Special Commitment Center (SCC) from getting their hands on thousands of images of child pornography. In the past two years, at least four of the 267 residents have been charged with possessing illegal pornography, and officials there are investigating several others. The latest case emerged just before Christmas, when the FBI arrested a 49-year-old child molester...

WASHINGTON -- Several hundred Pakistani families have fled to neighboring Afghanistan in recent days to escape the turmoil in their country, officials said Wednesday. And the Pakistani military has removed a small number of troops from a border post between the two nations to tend to problems elsewhere, said Col. Martin Schweitzer, a U.S. commander in eastern Afghanistan. "Clearly, we're very interested with what's going on over there - we're watching it pretty closely," Schweitzer told Pentagon reporters. He said that so far, commanders haven't seen any significant rise in cross-border activity in his area bordering the lawless tribal region...

As first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton jaw-boned the authoritarian president of Uzbekistan to leave his car and shake hands with people. She argued with the Czech prime minister about democracy. She cajoled Roman Catholic and Protestant women to talk to one another in Northern Ireland. She traveled to 79 countries in total, little of it leisure; one meeting with mutilated Rwandan refugees so unsettled her that she threw up afterward. But during those two terms in the White House, Mrs. Clinton did not hold a security clearance. She did not attend National Security Council meetings. She was not given a...

Video is about a female suicide bomer's child, and includes the line "I will follow my mother's steps".

Walter Reed Army Medical Center cannot accept packages, letters, and holiday cards addressed to 'Any Wounded Soldier' or 'A Recovering American Soldier'. The U.S. Postal Service is no longer accepting "Any Service Member" or "A Recovering American Soldier" letters or packages. Mail to "Any Service Member" that is deposited into a collection box will not be delivered. However, through a unique partnership between the American Red Cross and Pitney Bowes Inc., communities across America are invited to mail cards along with personal messages of support to wounded service members at military hospitals around the country. With the support of the...

In the coming weeks, Boston police will begin asking parents in several impoverished, high-crime neighborhoods to allow searches of their homes — without the need for warrants. The surprising reaction: many parents and community leaders are all for it. And that is making for an intriguing civil liberties debate. Under the experimental program, dubbed "Safe Homes," teams of police officers assigned to Boston's public schools will hunt for leads on youths believed to have guns. Tips might come from neighbors, or even parents or guardians, who are often fearful of their own children. Three plainclothes officers and a clergyperson or...

BAGHDAD -- Iraq's government is prepared to offer the U.S. a long-term troop presence in Iraq and preferential treatment for American investments in return for an American guarantee of long-term security including defense against internal coups, The Associated Press learned Monday. The proposal, described to the AP by two senior officials familiar with the issue, is one of the first indications that the United States and Iraq are beginning to explore what their relationship might look like, once the U.S. significantly draws down its troop presence. The Iraqi officials said that under the proposed formula, Iraq would get full responsibility...

VIENNA - Islamist militants are becoming more skilled at tailoring their message to specific audiences, including women and children, and Western societies are struggling to find a response. “One of the most alarming trends we found on the Internet recently is what we call ’narrowcasting’,” said Gabriel Weimann, professor of communications at the University of Haifa in Israel which monitors 5,800 militant Web sites. Instead of ’broadcasting’ — trying to reach the biggest possible audience — the approach is to slice the audience into segments and target each with specific tactics, he said. “Terrorists are using the Internet to focus...

The Supreme Court of Canada on Thursday refused to hear an appeal by two U.S. military deserters who sought refuge in the country to avoid deployment to Iraq, a conflict they argued is “immoral and illegal.” The announcement ends a bid by American soldiers Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey, the plaintiffs in the case, to win refugee status and opens the way for them to be deported to the United States, where they could face court martial for going AWOL and missing troop movements. It also could lead to deportation of dozens of other American soldiers who have filed formal...

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Police used batons to clear roads around the Port of Olympia and made one arrest during an anti-war protest in which demonstrators tried to block military convoys. More than 100 people chanted slogans, some protesters tried to run in front of the convoys and others dumped garbage on roads Wednesday night to try to halt the transport of gear for an Army Stryker brigade that recently returned to nearby Fort Lewis from Iraq. "We do everything at the lowest level possible," Bjornstad said. "We've had officers spit on tonight. I'm very impressed by the restraint used by...

ROME, Italy - A U.S. Army helicopter crashed in northern Italy on Thursday and five people were believed to have been killed, two Italian news agencies reported. Senior Airman Justin Weaver, a spokesman at the U.S. Air Force base in Aviano, near Venice, said he had no confirmation on the number of deaths but that the chopper involved was a UH-60 Black Hawk Army helicopter that had taken off from Aviano.

As many as 195,800 military veterans were homeless on any given night last year, and there are "troubling" indications that many service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan could eventually face the same fate, according to a study being released today. The report, from the National Alliance to End Homelessness, found that veterans make up a quarter of the United States' homeless population and that the District has a particularly high rate, with an estimated 7.5 percent of the nearly 32,000 veterans in the city living on the streets, in shelters or in assisted housing. Although veterans make up about...

MANAGUA, Nicaragua - Two weeks after Olga Reyes danced at her wedding, her bloated and disfigured body was laid to rest in an open coffin — the victim, her husband and some experts say, of Nicaragua’s new no-exceptions ban on abortion. Evangelical groups and the church say abortion is never needed now because medical advances solve the complications that might otherwise put a pregnant mother’s life at risk. But at least three women have died because of the ban, and another 12 reported cases will be examined, said gynecologist and university researcher Eliette Valladares, who is working with the Pan...

NEWPORT, Ore. — The first wave energy test buoy deployed off the Oregon Coast is now 150 feet below the ocean surface. Mike Clark, a spokesman for Finavera Renewables, a Canadian energy developer, said the 72-foot-tall buoy began taking on water late last week and sank just one day before engineers were going to remove it. The company plans to recover the $2 million buoy next spring, when the ocean calms, Clark told The Oregonian newspaper.

MOSCOW — A powerful bomb ripped through a bus in central Russia Wednesday morning, killing eight people and wounding at least 53 in what one official called a terror attack. Investigators were trying to determine whether the explosive device was carried by a passenger or had been planted somewhere on the bus in the city of Togliatti, according to Russian news agencies. The explosion occurred near a bus stop in the city center as people were going to work. A group of college students had gotten off at the stop just seconds before the blast, and about 20 students were...

ARMONK, N.Y. -- IBM Corp. says it has developed a greener method for recycling precious silicon that is wasted during computer chip manufacturing. For microprocessors and other computer chips to be made, discs of silicon known as wafers get circuitry imprinted on them and then are cut into hundreds of tiny pieces that become the chips. Because chips have to be essentially flawless, imperfect portions or even the entire wafers sometimes get discarded. It has been possible to salvage that silicon. Some gets resold to the solar-panel industry, while other pieces get reused as "monitors," the wafers that are fed...

Once again, Hillary Rodham Clinton leads in a poll. This time, she was top choice when people were asked which major 2008 presidential candidate would make the scariest Halloween costume. Asked about costume choices, 37 percent in an Associated Press-Ipsos survey this month chose New York Sen. Clinton, the front-runner among Democratic presidential contenders. Fourteen percent selected former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who leads Republicans in national polls.