Free Republic

... David Gergen told about 600 guests attending a dinner at the University of Oklahoma on Wednesday that John McCain and Barack Obama are locked in a virtual tie and the Republicans could pull off an upset. "Race has, and is, the big gorilla in the room that you can't get around," Gergen said. "We have made a lot of progress but we're not there yet. It gives alot of unpredictability to what we do." ...

Larry Harmon, the man credited with making Bozo the Clown the icon he was, died Thursday of congestive heart failure. He was 83. Harmon wasn't the original Bozo, but built up the character and eventually licensed it to television stations across the country. Born in Toledo, Ohio, Harmon became interested in theater while studying at the University of Southern California. "Bozo is a star, an entertainer, bigger than life," Harmon once said. "People see him as Mr. Bozo, somebody you can relate to, touch and laugh with."

FORT MYER, Va., April 7, 2008 – Children normally are told to quit clowning around, but today it was actually encouraged, as clowns from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus entertained more than 100 youngsters at the child development center here. More than 100 children from the child development center on Fort Myer, Va., enjoy a performance by members of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, April 7, 2008. These four, from left, Ryan Cline, 2, Madeline Fontana, 5, Jaylen Wright, 4, and Liam Ryan, 4, got a chance to be part of the action. Photo by...

Next time the cashier says "paper or plastic," think outside the bags. Think about ocean pollution, giant landfills and global warming, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels says. Then think to next year, when you might have to either pull out a reusable tote or pay 20 cents a bag. Nickels and City Council President Richard Conlin proposed a 20-cent "green fee" Wednesday on all disposable bags to encourage customers to carry their milk and eggs home in their own bags. Forget the canvas sacks at home? Shoppers at grocery, convenience and drug stores will pay the price starting Jan. 1, if...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Two Northland residents came up with a unique way to boost the morale of U.S. troops serving overseas. Cheryl Herrington and Larry Mills are two clowns who have sent thousands of red foam noses to cheer up soldiers at war.

LONDON (Reuters) - Unhappy clowns from around the world say a study that reported that children didn't like them has wiped the big smile from their faces, and have been falling over their large shoes to put their case. A poll by researchers looking at what decor to put in hospital children's wards found that youngsters do not like clowns on the walls and even older ones think they are scary. "We found that clowns are universally disliked by children. Some found them quite frightening and unknowable," said Penny Curtis, senior researcher at the University of Sheffield which questioned 250...

LONDON (Reuters) - Bad news for Coco and Blinko -- children don't like clowns and even older kids are scared of them. The news that will no doubt have clowns shedding tears was revealed in a poll of youngsters by researchers from the University of Sheffield who were examining how to improve the decor of hospital children's wards. The study, reported in the Nursing Standard magazine, found all the 250 patients aged between four and 16 they quizzed disliked the use of clowns, with even the older ones finding them scary. "As adults we make assumptions about what works for...

Don't send in the clowns Hospitals are being urged not to decorate children's wards with paintings of clowns in case they upset young patients. State-funded research has found that in a survey of more than 250 children aged four to 16, all disliked the use of clowns in hospital decor, with even the teenagers seeing them as "scary". "Given that children and young people do not find hospitals frightening per se - and only express fear about those spaces associated with needles - this finding is somewhat ironic," said Dr Penny Curtis of Sheffield University. The aim of the Space...

Amid new polling that points to a shift in momentum in this crucial state, Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama made arguments Monday that electing the other would prove a costly mistake.

<snip>Paul's electoral success has befuddled Democrats. They say he routinely opposes bills that would help his sprawling 14th Congressional District, a mostly rural swath of coast that stretches from the northern outskirts of Corpus Christi to Galveston.Last year, Republican appropriators zeroed out millions of dollars in funding for several dredging and port improvement projects in the district - a casualty, Democrats say, of Paul's opposition to government pork even if it benefits his own constituents.Democrat Shane Sklar, a rancher who lost to Paul last year, said the congressman's supporters either didn't believe or didn't care that his votes had made...

Waukesha, WI - Troubles keep adding up for Ronald E. Schroeder, who performed professionally as Silly the Clown but has been sitting in the Waukesha County Jail since May on charges of sexual assault, domestic violence and possession of child pornography. On Aug. 10, he was granted work-release privileges and was supposed to be transferred to the county's Huber facility so he could leave for work. It never happened. Here's why: Schroeder is $4,000 behind on his child support payments resulting from a 1995 divorce in Milwaukee County. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Mary Kuhnmuench found him in contempt in June...

For the first time in the history of Canterbury Cathedral, the Holy Fools UK will be holding a special service to cerebrate their 25th Silver Anniversary. The Service will take place on Saturday, 15 September at 6pm and will have up to 30 Christian clowns (Holy Fools) in the service, all colourfully made up and in costume ready to present this special service with all the energy and fun that clowns give. The public is warmly invited to the service to join them in this special celebration The Holy Fools is a national Christian organization with members throughout the UK....

McALLEN — A man wanted in connection with the fatal shooting of a Reynosa police officer may have crossed into the United States dressed as a clown, Mexican state police said Thursday. Tamaulipas investigators alerted U.S. authorities Wednesday that the suspect may have crossed the Rio Grande illegally while wearing a costume as a disguise. On Monday, accomplices sneaked the man through the Reynosa in a garbage cart to help him get out of town, said Fernando Miranda Guerrero, chief of homicide investigations for the state police. “We went to the river and searched along it with the help of...

Twenty years ago, a few clowns decided to change from making people laugh to making them cry. With the help of a transitional deacon who had been nurturing the idea of a clown ministry, "The Way of the Cross in the Company of Clowns" was born.They perform around the Albany Diocese only during Lent, with a poignant look at the passion, death and Resurrection of Jesus, and during Advent, when they celebrate the birth of Jesus.First tries"People loved it," Jack Ablett said of the early performances. He and his wife Rita are among the original founders of the ministry at...

Four members of the anti-war group Code Pink were arrested outside the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) Thursday afternoon, following an announcement that they would seek to take over the office. The group’s members had planned to hold a symbolic “Pin the war on the Donkey” demonstration at Pelosi’s office to show their frustration with the Democratic leadership’s inaction on ending the war in Iraq. However, Capitol Police prevented the taping of a drawn donkey to the wall. Code Pink members were crying outside Pelosi’s office. When asked why, Rae Abileah, 24, said she was crying out of...

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA (Feb 24, 2007) Police said they arrested a man yesterday in connection with the killing of two clowns in front of dozens of children during a performance, in a case that has convulsed the violence-hardened South American country. Walter Bautista, 21, who goes by the alias "My Fish," was being held on charges of murder and trafficking in arms, a police statement said. Clowns Willington Villamizar, 18, known as "Rony," and Nelson Nunez, 24, known as "Andres," were gunned down Tuesday night in the middle of their circus act in the town Cucuta, about 650 kilometres northeast of...

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) -- Two clowns were shot and killed by an unidentified gunman during their performance at a traveling circus in the eastern Colombian town of Cucuta, police said Wednesday. The gunman burst into the Circo del Sol de Cali on Monday night and shot the clowns in front of an audience of 20 to 50 people, local police chief Jose Humberto Henao told Reuters. One of the clowns was killed instantly, and the second died the next day in hospital. "The killings had nothing to do with the show the victims were performing at the time of the...

MESA - Hundreds of people who believe the government has lied about the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States plan to gather in Chandler later this week to strategize about how to find out the truth. The 9/11 Accountability: Strategies and Solutions Conference will be held Friday through Sunday at the Crowne Plaza San Marcos Golf Resort in Chandler. The conference will include keynote speakers, panel discussions, strategy workshops and a documentary film marathon. Theories on what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, include one that the government planted bombs to bring down the World Trade Center towers...

Two anti-whaling activists, one an Australian, were feared missing in Antarctic waters after a clash with a Japanese whaling fleet. A search for the two men was under way after the anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd confronted Japanese whaling vessels in the Ross Sea. International director of Sea Shepherd, Jonny Vasic, said anti-whaling activists from two ships had used high speed inflatables to try to disrupt the operations of the whaling fleet. But a mayday message was issued after radio contact was lost with two activists in an inflatable. One of the men was an Australian from Perth and the other...

"That is not a hair question." "That is also not a hair question." These guys are kind of funny.

Customs inspectors discover 500 pounds; additional 600 pounds found on another tour bus entering U.S. HIDALGO - Clowns are not usually a party to large drug investigations. But on Sunday, customs inspectors at the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge found more than 500 pounds of cocaine on a private tour bus in which a Latin Grammy-nominated musical group of clowns was riding. About 40 minutes later, an additional 600 pounds of cocaine was seized from another tour bus entering the United States Officials said the two drug seizures were not related. Customs and Border Protection estimates the street value of the drugs...

It is amazing how the United States deals with its history by either hiding its head in the sand or attempting to rewrite the accounts of its shameful behavior. What is even more disturbing is that the much vaunted “free press” in the U.S. is complicit in this intellectual rape of the general populace. The collaboration between the delusional political prostitutes that act as the government and the intellectual eunuchs who make up the communications media has left the American public deaf, dumb and blind to the truth. Americans need to know that both President Mahmud Ahmadinejad of Iran and...

Five years after it burst onto the scene with the grandiose attacks of September 11, the terror group is a shadow of its former self. Its chief architects, Messrs. bin Laden and Zawahiri, and their so-called consultative council are on the run; its top field commanders are decimated, and its hundreds of foot soldiers are in jail, being hounded or singing like canaries under torture, or bribery. To be sure, copycats are popping up here and there, but the West can certainly claim it has demolished the infrastructure of the original group.

SADDAM HUSSEIN ended his 19-day hunger strike last Wednesday with a meal of beef, rice and Coca-Cola, but he had little to show for his starvation. Iraqis in particular, living day-to-day with brutal sectarian violence, viewed Mr. Hussein’s self-sacrifice as an insult. “Saddam’s hunger strike didn’t work because it came from someone who is finished in Iraq and has no political or personal value for the Iraqi people,” said Fauwzya al-Attiya, a sociologist at Baghdad University. “Most of us wish he was executed just to end this problem so we can face our other problems.” But if Mr. Hussein tarnished...

The American Left as "crisis cult" Clinical psychologist Robert Godwin proposes an interesting framework for understanding the increasingly bizarre behavior of the American Left at his very interesting website One Cosmos. Drawing on the work of psychoanalytic anthropologist Weston LaBarre, he posits that the left has become a “crisis cult” such as are found in societies whose bedrock assumptions break down in the face of the superior strength of foreign cultures impinging on their territory. Probably the most famous of the crisis cults are the cargo cults which developed in Melanesia. The Cargo Cults believe that manufactured western goods (‘cargo’)...

A bankruptcy trustee for a carnival company whose owners received a pardon from President Clinton is seeking to garnish the bank accounts of Mr. Clinton's brother-in-law to recoup more than $100,000 in loans. Anthony D. Rodham, one of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's two brothers, got the loans from United Shows of America Inc. after its owners obtained the presidential pardon in March 2000 over the objections of the Justice Department. Michael E. Collins, trustee for United Shows, filed papers in Alexandria bankruptcy court seeking the return of $107,000 plus $46,034 in interest from Mr. Rodham, 51, for the loans he...

The organisers of a rock festival have abandoned a circus theme for the event after complaints from people suffering from a fear of clowns. Would-be festival-goers e-mailed to say they would not attend because they suffered from coulrophobia. Organisers of the Bestival, an annual music festival on the Isle of Wight, were encouraging revellers to dress up in a circus theme for the September event. Last year 10,000 turned up as cowboys and Indians. DJ Rob da Bank, an organiser of the event, headlined by the Scissor Sisters and Pet Shop Boys, said: "We have decided to change the fancy...

On Tuesday morning, a retired Catholic priest and two veterans put on clown suits, busted into a nuclear missile launch facility, and began beating the silo cover with hammers, in an attempt to take the Minuteman III missile off-line. Seriously. The trio -- members of the Luck, Wisconsin group Nukewatch -- said the break-in was part of "a call for national repentance" for the Hiroshima and Nagaski A-bombings in 1945. The activists used bolt-cutters to get into the E-9 Minuteman II facility, located just northwest of the White Shield, North Dakota. "Using a sledgehammer and household hammers, they disabled the...

Three nuclear protesters arrested Tuesday at a Minuteman III missile launch facility west of Garrison when they unlawfully entered the area, remain in the McLean County Jail in Washburn Wednesday. The three, Greg Boertje-Obed, 51, and Michael Walli, 57, both military veterans from Duluth, Minn., and Carl Kabat, 72, a retired priest from St. Louis, made their initial appearance in Washburn Wednesday afternoon before South Central District Judge Bruce Romanick. McLean County Sheriff Don Charging said the three are being charged with criminal trespass and criminal mischief, both Class A misdemeanors, and bond was set at $500 each. He said...

Democracy: Peru's Alan Garcia should never have been re-elected to anything, given his disastrous term as president from 1985 to 1990. That voters forgave and re-elected him Sunday only shows how bad the alternative was. Two months ago, when the first round of Peru's presidential elections was held, there was reason to despair. Free-market candidate Lourdes Flores was knocked out of the running by just a few thousand votes. That left Alan Garcia squared off against a far-leftist of the Hugo Chavez stripe, Ollanta Humala, giving many Peruvians a difficult and loathesome choice. Garcia wasn't just a bad president; he...

There was something missing from the full-page advertisement that the American Civil Liberties Union ran in newspapers around the country last week. The ad kicked off an ACLU campaign called "Don't Spy On Me," which is aimed at pressuring federal and state regulators into investigating the phone companies that supplied domestic call records to federal intelligence analysts. Subtle the ad wasn't. "IF YOU'VE USED A TELEPHONE IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS, READ THIS," shouted the headline in end-of-the-world-sized type. "AT&T, Verizon, and other phone companies may have illegally sent your phone records to the National Security Agency." The ad went...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - American director Oliver Stone and British producer John Daly plan to make a film about the 2002 coup that briefly brought down Venezuela's government, President Hugo Chavez said Sunday. Chavez said Stone and Daly plan to announce the upcoming film at the Cannes Film Festival in France. He added that the two called Venezuela Sunday morning to discuss their plans. "They've asked for our permission to announce it today in Cannes, and we've told them yes, that we're interested in that film being made," Chavez said during his weekly television and radio program.

NEW YORK, May 18 (Reuters) - Occidental Petroleum Corp. (OXY.N: Quote, Profile, Research) is seeking damages totaling more than $1 billion as part of an arbitration claim against the Ecuadorean government for seizing its assets, a company spokesman said on Thursday. The U.S. oil producer has also terminated all local employees in Ecuador and is relocating its expatriate staff, the spokesman said.

Latin America: Ecuador's government deserves all the trouble it's got coming now that it's decided expropriation is the way to get rich. But the trouble won't come from the U.S. It's headed their way from Ecuadoreans....The loss of Ecuador's hard-won free-trade pact with the U.S., something it was on the razor's edge of signing, is virtually guaranteed. Ecuador also will probably lose all practical access to U.S. markets when its 2006 Andean trade preferences expire.Two free-trade-pact neighbors, Peru and Colombia, will gladly help themselves to Ecuador's market share in exports of flowers, shrimp and other regional specialties. About 60% of...

    For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces.   FR CANTEEN MISSION STATEMENT Showing support and boosting the morale of our military and our allies military and the family members of the above. Honoring those who have served before. Thank you, to all our military members protecting and defending the United States today. Thank you to those who have gone before, to make our country what it is today. Thank you to our Allies, who stand by our side in this endeavor. Your sacrifices are not taken for...

If there was ever a scene that stunned me and shamed me, was to see today the tape of the opening of the Supreme Court sessions for the Judicial year 2006 which took place two days ago. President Chavez was in attendance, the President of the Supreme Court gave a speech in which he spoke of Justice and independence. The Hall was packed with Justices and the employees of the Court. Then the session ended and the Justices in their solemn robes proceeded to show why this revolution is absolutely grotesque and immoral and why everything that was expressed during...

Joseph Grimaldi, "Father of Clowns" (1778-1837) Inducted into the 1990 Clown Hall of Fame, Joseph Grimaldi was one of the greatest English pantomimes. His father was Giuseppit Grimaldi (died 1788), an Italian dancing master and pantomimist. Joseph's stage debut was at 3 years old in a dance at Sadler's Wells, London's famous variety theater. Grimaldi never performed in a circus ring, but spent most of his life performing in full-length pantomimes. He had the most to do with the development of the pantomime character of Clown. He also was the one to give clowns their most enduring nickname, "Joey." Grimaldi...

Terri Schiavo would be 42 today, if she had not been dehydrated to death per court order. Instead of the happy squeals and vocalizations the brain-damaged woman was known to utter, the deafening silence of loss haunts her loved ones on this anniversary of her birth. Many Americans prefer the silence. The very mention of the name, "Terri Schiavo," elicits groans from those "burned out" on what they view as simply an overblown news story. "I do not understand why you keep pumping the glory of her death," wrote one WND reader in response to continuing coverage of the familial...

Mar del Plata, Argentina, Nov 4 (EFE).- A Nobel laureate and a leftist Bolivian presidential candidate - but not, as had been promised, an Argentine soccer icon - led a march of thousands of anti-U.S. protesters through the streets of this seaside resort city Friday, hours before the inauguration of the Summit of the Americas. Retired athlete Diego Maradona, who had vowed to lead the demonstration to "repudiate" the presence of U.S. President George W. Bush, was in town but did not join the vanguard of the marchers. The explanation provided was that the former captain of the national soccer...

Panama, Nov 1 (Prensa Latina) A US presidential visit to Panama may be received by angry banana growers in front of that country´s embassy here. George W. Bush will arrive in this capital next Sunday for a less-than-24-hour visit, and although the government has worked hard to present the US statesman´s stopover as a step forward in bilateral relations, rejection prevails. The Cooperative of Multiple Services of Puertos Armuelles (COOSEMUPAR), in the province of Chiriqu¡, has some issues with the US transnational banana company Chiquita Brands International, and has asked the Panamanian government to get back four million dollars worth...

EVERETT - Think of clowns, and birthday parties or circus rings may come to mind -- not gun-wielding robbers. But that was the case in Everett Wednesday morning when two armed clowns hit a doughnut shop. In full clown make up with red noses, two men walked into Henry's Donut Shop and locked the door. The owner was alone, her husband on his way. "He took the gun and told me, 'not to move.' He wanted money," said husband Be Le, who also sells Vietnamese sandwiches at the shop. Le's wife showed the clowns the cash register, but they had...

For the past 20 years, there's been a discussion in political circles and the media about the "fault lines" in the Republican party over the hot-button social issues such as the death penalty, abortion, affirmative action and gay rights. The presumption has always been that these issues would ultimately cause a rift between conservatives and moderates that would split the Republican coalition. The pundits and the MSM have been expecting and predicting this split for as long as I've been watching politics and they've been puzzled by the fact that it has never occurred. I believe that the reason that...

AFL-CIO Closer to Breaking Up SEIU Board Authorizes Union Leaders to Quit Federation By Thomas B. Edsall Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, June 12, 2005; Page A07 The Service Employees International Union yesterday took the first concrete step toward breaking up the AFL-CIO, the nation's central labor federation. The SEIU executive board, at a meeting in San Francisco, authorized union leaders to quit the federation. As many as four other unions -- the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers, Unite Here and the Laborers -- could follow suit, pulling out 5 million of the AFL-CIO's 13 million members. Free...

Note to Self: Bring Big Floppy Shoes and Round Red Nose to Church May 22“Whose fool are you?” asks the Rev. Dr. James Herbert Cooper, rector of Trinity Church-St. Paul’s Chapel, as he introduces the “Clown Eucharist” that will be held at Trinity on May 22 at the 11:15 am service. Please note that only the 11:15 service at Trinity will be a Clown Eucharist. In addition to the regular services (8 am St. Paul's Chapel, 9 am Trinity Church), a traditional service will be held at St. Paul's Chapel at 11:15. Please see the video links below for more....

Clowns abound at church service The main Sunday service at historic Trinity Church was inspired by something the Apostle Paul wrote in a letter to Christians in the Greek city of Corinth. "We are fools for the sake of Christ," he told them. And so, in that spirit, the Rev. James Cooper, rector of the celebrated Episcopal sanctuary at Broadway and Wall St., greeted worshipers last Sunday in some highly unorthodox vestments - a checked red-and-white clown suit, red fright wig, rubber nose and large floppy shoes. Then, in what was almost surely the most unusual church service most parishioners...

The more I discover about Trinity Church's Trinity Sunday clown Eucharist Holy Communion Travesty, the worse it gets.  That, at this time of difficulty, an ancient and historically important congregation would choose to mark the Feast of the Holy Trinity and its patronal feast this way is diagnostic of some terminal disease.  To do it at all is bad enough.  Anyway, the service bulletin is here, and there are pictures here.  Expagan also has links to videos of the event.  You have to wade through some snarkiness about Anglican orders to get there, but we've brought this on ourselves.  I...

Then take a gander over at Trinity Episcopal Church in New York. They are claiming that they are doing the first ever Clown Eucharist. However my describing it doesn’t do it justice.  If you are able to stomach it, and actually make it to the fractioning rite, just be very afraid.Click here to see why the Episcopal Church in the United States is dying - DSLClick here to see why the Episcopal Church in the United States is dying - T1Click here to see why the Episcopal Church in the United States is dying - Ultra They have an audio...

Democrats say they feel bullied by Republican rule WASHINGTON – California's two senators may have voiced delight about the Monday compromise that averted a showdown on the filibuster, but the GOP's threat to abolish one of the most potent political weapons available to Democrats clearly left sore feelings toward Republicans and the White House. "Today, there is not really active consultation by this administration in most cases," Sen. Dianne Feinstein told her colleagues this week. "Instead, there appears to be a kind of disregard for the opinions of all Democratic senators." Sen. Barbara Boxer had similar sentiments, telling her colleagues...

Sometimes these things write themselves.  Trinity Episcopal Church in New York City has a special event planned for this Sunday:On May 22, Trinity Sunday, we will have a Clown Eucharist, "doing church" as if we were a circus come to town. We will celebrate the Eucharist and learn about the basic traditional outline for Eucharistic worship by experiencing it and participating in it from a new perspective. It will likely be a surprise to see clowns inside Trinity Church,Not to orthodox Christians familiar with the general drift of the Episcopal Church over the last 40 years or so, it won't.but think about...

She is a national hero in her homeland, hailed for plucking her little sister from their family home as it was consumed by flames. Now, Nastya Ovchar, her body burned extensively during the rescue of her sister, lies in a room at Shriners Burns Hospital Boston, half a world away from her home in the Ukraine. If they made a movie about Nastya, they could well call it ''The President and the Little Girl," for it was the intervention of a national leader who had endured his own share of physical suffering that assured the 5-year- old could receive lifesaving...