Free Republic

The recently freed Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt has urged an end to the Colombian government's "vocabulary of hate" against her former captors. Ms Betancourt, a former presidential candidate, was held hostage for six years by Marxist Farc rebels. But, while praising President Alvaro Uribe's work towards her release, she said it was time to end "extremist" language towards the Farc. Ms Betancourt is in Paris, where she flew after her release on Wednesday. "I think we have reached a point where we must change this radical, extremist vocabulary of hate of very strong words that intimately wound the human being,"...

MADRID (AFP) — Last week's meeting between former US president Jimmy Carter and the exiled leader of Hamas militants did not produce any results, Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki said here Wednesday. "President Carter came to the region thinking he could achieve something. Unfortunately president Carter left without anything concrete," he told a conference in the Spanish capital. "The only thing he achieved was permission on the part of Khaled Meshaal of Hamas to deliver a letter from a detained Israeli soldier to his family. Nothing else," he said. "Hamas offered nothing to president Carter. They reiterated the same positions....

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States was for slavery “before we were against it.” That history lesson was brought to you by Sen. John Kerry, who argues that if an entire nation can be indecisive about human bondage, voters surely should forgive a political leader who changes his or her mind. “Decisiveness wrongly applied can create a lot of pain for the nation and big, big historic mistakes,” says the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee labeled a “flip-flopper” by President Bush. Four years after his unsuccessful run, Kerry sat down with Associated Press reporters for more than 30 minutes to discuss...

Charlize Theron has referred to the Turkish city of Istanbul as Budapest three times in an interview about her "backpacking" adventures around the world. Theron, an Oscar winner known for taking on tough roles, described buying Turkish carpets in a bazaar and attending the Istanbul International Film Festival in "Budapest", the Daily Mail reports.

Do you have a very best stock? A stock that brings you closer to retirement year in and year out? One like Kraft, formerly American Dairy Products, which -- as tracked back by Dr. Jeremy Siegel -- turned $1,000 into more than $2 million over 53 years with dividend reinvestment? In terms of returns, Kraft has quite literally been the very best stock of the past half-century. I pay special attention to this stuff: My job is to find companies with the same magic that's made Kraft such a dynamite stock. A repeatable fortune What's the secret of Kraft's phenomenal...

Last weekend after returning to my office from the television studios of a major network where I had done a brief segment on the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, I turned on CNN to watch their coverage of the Bhutto assassination's aftermath. Sen. Hillary Clinton was telling Wolf Blitzer that she didn't think "the Pakistani government at this time under President Musharraf has any credibility at all." She then said something that betrayed a serious lack of knowledge about Pakistan and called her own credibility on the subject into serious question. "If President Musharraf wishes to stand for election," she...

Last week, pundits across the spectrum castigated Mike Huckabee for a couple of glaring mistakes in his response to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. He offered "apologies" to Pakistanis, later clarifying to "condolences", and inexplicably placed Afghanistan on Pakistan's eastern border, rather than western. If those gaffes qualify for headline treatment, then Hillary Clinton's confusion on Pakistani politics should get top-of-the-wires treatment, at least: Senator Hillary Clinton was praised in the wake of the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto for demonstrating her command of the players and the issues at stake in Pakistan, even as another candidate,...

This is what you call a man who is out of touch. There is no excuse for him to be speaking with authority about something so important without having done his homework.

Pretty much. Here’s what he said: MIKE HUCKABEE: I’ve been to Guantanamo, I was there, I guess it’s been about a year and a half ago. I think the problem with Guantanamo is not in that its facilities are inadequate. It’s the symbol that it represents. It’s clearly become a symbol to the rest of the world as a place that has become problematic for us as a nation. I was quite frankly impressed with the quality of the facilities and even the attention to care that was given to the detainees, but that aside, it doesn’t alter that Guantanamo...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush should announce on September 15 an initial pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq to spur the Iraqi government to take steps toward political reconciliation, an influential Republican senator said on Thursday. Virginia Sen. John Warner said Bush should "announce on the 15th that in consultation with our senior military commanders he has decided to initiate the the first step in a withdrawal of our forces."

A day after blasting Democratic presidential rival Sen. Hillary Clinton for accepting campaign donations from News Corp. officials, John Edwards acknowledged that he, too, had gotten payments from an arm of the company but said all of the money went to charity.

Perhaps Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico and Democrat presidential candidate, and his handlers misunderstood: Candor, not cluelessness, is the new political-speak. It is the only plausible explanation they can use following his abysmal performance on "Meet the Press" last Sunday, an appearance peppered with so many apologies and I-shouldn't-have-said-thats that one might think they were at a backwoods revival. His "Meet the Press" mistakes came in every size -- big ones and small ones, even medium-sized ones: from immigration flip-flops to character flaws that reflect a propensity for exaggeration. Heck, he even flubbed his favorite baseball team. SNIP Then...

Michaal Ramirez's cartoon commentary on Jimmy Carter is here.

Just call him the pimpinatorGOVERNOR TAKES BIODIESEL PUSH TO `PIMP MY RIDE' By Kate Folmar MediaNews Sacramento Bureau Article Launched: 04/10/2007 01:34:25 AM PDT Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is hooking up with the MTV reality show "Pimp My Ride" for a special Earth Day episode that he hopes will boost the street cred of low-emission cars. Typically, the program features everyday people who have their trashed rides tricked out into bling-mobiles with built-in espresso machines or lava lamps. But for this episode, the crew will transform a 1965 Chevy Impala into a clean, green biodiesel machine. Efforts to reduce global warming...

A Chinese man is divorcing his wife after she pretended to hang herself as an April Fool's joke It happened when Mr Lin, of Shanghai, came home on April 1 after a business trip, reports the Shanghai Evening Post. "When I opened the door, I saw a black object swinging in the air. When I turned on the light I was shocked to see my wife had hanged herself," he said. Lin immediately called police and the property office. Office staff helped Lin take down the 'body' while waiting for the police.

Ten of the best April Fool's Day hoaxes: US museum Thu Mar 29, 4:19 AM ET From television revealing that spaghetti grows on trees to advertisements for the left-handed burger, the tradition of April Fool's Day stories in the media has a weird and wonderful history. Here are 10 of the top April Fool's Day pranks ever pulled off, as judged by the San Diego-based Museum of Hoaxes for their notoriety, absurdity, and number of people duped. -- In 1957, a BBC television show announced that thanks to a mild winter and the virtual elimination of the spaghetti weevil,...

Former Booker winner and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, Nadine Gordimer, has been attacked at her home in South Africa. Gordimer, 83, was assaulted when three men broke into her home in Johannesburg on Thursday, taking cash and jewellery. The author, who was locked in a store room with her maid while the burglars fled the scene, did not receive any serious injuries. Police spokesman Sergeant Sanku Tsunke said no arrests had been made. Despite demands to hand over her jewellery, Gordimer refused to part with her wedding ring from her marriage to art dealer Reinhold Cassirer, who...

QALAT, Afghanistan U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday that the Afghan guerrilla war can never be won militarily and called for efforts to bring the Taliban and their supporters into the Afghan government. The Tennessee Republican said he had learned from briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support to be defeated by military means. "You need to bring them into a more transparent type of government," Frist said during a brief visit to a U.S. and Romanian military base in the southern Taliban stronghold of Qalat. "And if that's accomplished we'll be...

LITTLE ROCK In an appearance in Little Rock today, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright criticized the Bush administration's foreign policy as a "mess." Albright says the White House is ignoring other international problems by focusing solely on the Middle East. About 12-hundred people turned out at the Statehouse Convention Center to hear Albright speak. She served as Secretary of State and as Ambassador to the United Nations under President Bill Clinton. Today's appearance was sponsored by the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service and the Clinton Foundation. In her speech, Albright criticized Bush's foreign policy team and...

Judiciary: Detroit Judge Anna Diggs Taylor has agreed to the American Civil Liberties Union's demands to shut down the National Security Agency's wiretapping program. Terrorists everywhere are cheering. The 73-year-old Judge Taylor, appointed by Jimmy Carter in 1979, has a long history as a radical. In 1964, she helped set up a Mississippi office of the National Lawyers Guild, which Congress in 1950 called the "legal bulwark of the Communist Party." What happened Thursday was nothing less than a judicial disarmament of the U.S. — stripping away some of our most valuable weapons in the global war on terror.

Comments Appear In Men's Vogue Magazine Interview (CBS) CHICAGO U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is now talking openly about running for the White House. The senator graces the cover of the September-October issue of Men’s Vogue magazine, which hits the stands on Aug. 22. In an interview with writer Jacob Weisberg, Obama talks more than ever about the possibility of running for President. Obama is quoted in the magazine, “Look, it was highly unlikely that I would ever be a U.S. senator, so it’s very flattering for people to talk about a presidential race." “My attitude about something like the...

Globalization: Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is having a grand time cavorting around the world on his Axis Of Evil tour. But we notice he's disgusting as many countries as he's wooing. Vietnam is the most interesting. Chavez blew into Hanoi on Monday and right away began praising Vietnam's government in exactly the way it didn't want: by hailing communism. "Vietnam, with its valor, defeated imperialism not only on the battlefield, but also has maintained socialism in the ideological arena," the South American dictator intoned. Uh-huh. To Vietnam's officials, who've been trying diligently to integrate their nation into the world economy, that's...

Recently, we met an engineer from Air Synergy Labs, Inc. who has invented and patented (U.S. and Canadian Patents) a simple device that may in fact help to increase the performance of most any internal combustion engine.  If that’s the case, then his invention (he calls it the VortexValve™) might provide us with a simple and easy way to save huge amounts of money on transportation costs (i.e., the amount of fuel we have to buy for our cars, trucks, buses, etc.).  The story behind this unique device and its almost serendipitous discovery is quite fascinating and one of these...

From the (Vermont) Burlington Free Press: Peace activist Cindy Sheehan cancels Vermont visitJuly 28, 20Peace activist Cindy Sheehan has canceled her visit to Vermont because she plans a trip to Jordan for peace talks there, organizers announced today.Sheehan was to have attended a rally Sunday at Montpelier's Unitarian Church.The rally will still be held, with Vermont organizers planning to address renewed efforts to end the war in Iraq and pursue impeachment of the Bush administration.The event is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. and is free and public. It’s sort of like Ike saying he would go to Korea.Only different.

LONDON — The streaker who interrupted Maria Sharapova during her quarter-final Wimbledon win over Elena Dementieva was a Dutchman acting on a dare, officials said. Police have named the nude male intruder as Dutch disc jockey Sander Lantinga, 29, who was pulling off a stunt for a television program, British media reported. The streaker, nude from the waist up while sitting just a few rows away form the court, jumped onto the grass in the second set, ripping open a pair velcro clasps on his pants. He then managed to run around on the court and perform a handstand wearing...

CNSNews.com) - Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid says he wants to make sure the President Bush can't mislead the nation on Iran the way Bush supposedly misled Americans on the situation in Iraq. In an effort to get Congress more involved in U.S. policy toward Iran, Reid on Monday introduced a bill called the Iran Intelligence Oversight Act. Among other things, the bill would require President Bush to inform Congress about his objectives regarding Iran and his strategy for achieving them. It also would give Congress more "oversight" on the intelligence pertaining to Iran -- and it would require the...

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright criticized the U.S. invasion of Iraq, saying Monday it had encouraged Iran and North Korea to push ahead with their nuclear programs. Albright, who served under President Clinton, said "the message out of Iraq is the wrong one." "The message out of Iraq is that if you don't have nuclear weapons, you get invaded. If you do have nuclear weapons, you don't get invaded," she said after an investors' conference in Moscow. Albright visited North Korea in October 2000, becoming the highest-level American official ever to travel to the country. The two nations do...

THESE ARE THE SENATORS WHO VOTED TO GIVE SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS TO ILLEGAL ALIENS REGARDLESS OF POLITICAL PARTY, THESE POLITICIANS NEED TO BE DEFEATED IN 2006, 2008 OR 2010, WHENEVER THEY NEXT COME UP FOR OFFICE. SEND THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW; THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES NEEDS TO KNOW THIS INFORMATION -- THAT IS, UNLESS THEY DO NOT MIND SHARING THEIR SOCIAL SECURITY WITH FOREIGN WORKERS WHO NEVER PAID INTO IT AND AMERICAN CITIZENS ARE BEING LEFT OUT. Grouped by Home State Alabama: Alaska: Stevens (R-AK), Yea Arizona: McCain (R-AZ), Yea Arkansas: Lincoln (D-AR), Yea Pryor (D-AR),...

I am curious why none of the media covers the most important aspect of the Malvo shootings. If you look at Newspapers on the dates when the shootings are underway you discover something I find quite interesting. The shootings begin to dominate the news the day before the debate on the Iraq war starts and they catch them the day after the declaration of war??? If you ask most people "do you remember the debate about starting the second Iraq war", they will all answer "yes of course". But if you followup with the question "name one point in the...

I recently received a reply to a post that stated: "This should be beneath a "freeper". Sad." So I asked.. what is it that makes a FReeper? My reply (and I will admit was tasteless) was also questioning. It stirred controversy and was removed? Why Moderators? Can you not tell me? Did it not meet with your "FReeper" mentality? According to all posted guidelines it should be listed but no, you chose to delete it. Yes.. I'm the first one IBTZ, I'm sure you'll nick me for speaking up..

DANBURY — In a decision Superior Court trial referee Robert Callahan "agonized long and hard over," he ruled in favor of two accused drug dealers who claimed they were stopped outside the Sheraton in Danbury in 2004 only because they were black. In a written decision dated May 17 and received Friday by defense lawyers, Callahan said he came to his decision, which essentially guts the state's case against the men, "reluctantly" and after "soul-searching." Lawyer James Diamond of Danbury said his client Demetere Taft, 30, of Beaver Street, is "obviously very pleased that the judge has agreed with the...

The number two Democrat in the Senate is urging the House of Representatives not to repudiate a provision in the immigration reform bill that would force the U.S. to consult with Mexico before building a border fence. "To think that we would build a fence without any conversation or consultation with Mexico - that doesn't make sense," Sen. Dick Durbin told "Fox News Sunday." Asked why he felt such consultations were necessary, the top Democrat explained: "Good fences make good neighbors, too. And remember that when it's all over there will be cities across the border from one another in...

An Australian geologist is inflaming the creation-versus-evolution debate in Britain. Annabel Crabb reports from Birkenhead, England. A BEARDED, charismatic Australian has materialised at the centre of a fierce national argument in Britain about the teaching of creationism in schools. John Mackay, 59, is a Queensland geologist who believes the Earth to be about 6000 years old. In Australia, he's not exactly a household name. But in Britain and the US, he's the Steve Irwin of the creationist movement — a fossil fan and larrikin whose way with words is proving a hit with resurgent faith communities. Britain's schools are now...

I don't know when we'll see the next bear market. But like you, I know it's coming ... it's not a matter of "if" but rather a matter of "when." And today I'll tell you how you can prepare your portfolio so that you'll not only survive the bear intact, but also be better off than if it never happened at all. Siegel says We had the pleasure of hearing one of the world's great investing minds deliver the keynote speech at a recent Fool investing seminar. Wharton professor Jeremy Siegel is well-known for his book Stocks for the Long...

Borders!!! Language!!! Culture!!!

Dear Mr. President, Please defend our borders! Ask Congress to make English the solitary official language, and then sign the bill! Help us to maintain the distinctive American culture! Legal immigration: yes! Say "No!" to open borders, illegal aliens, globalism and the America-Mexico-Canada-NannyState!

Defending the borders! Speaking the language! Lifting the culture! It's the SAVAGE NATION!!!

Gettin' ready!!! Just as few more minutes!!!

Let's kick it up!!!

Gettin' ready!!! Potential topics??? (1) Illegal marches? (2) Rush Limbaugh? (3) Joe Biden's Iraq partition plan?

SAN FRANCISCO -- A young Black Muslim leader already charged with vandalizing a West Oakland liquor store was jailed today for allegedly using his BMW to run down a bouncer after being thrown out of a San Francisco strip club, police said. Yusuf Bey IV, 20, son of the late Black Muslim leader Yusuf Bey, was booked on suspicion of attempted murder and aggravated assault after he allegedly ran over one bouncer and tried to hit a second with his car outside the New Century Theater on Larkin Street, authorities said. He was being held without bail. Bey went to...

He's dissing Schumer for his absence now on the second Dubai deal............

Rep. Cynthia McKinney still does not know whether she will face criminal charges for allegedly punching a U.S. Capitol Police officer who stopped her at a security checkpoint. But the Georgia Democrat is pulling no punches with the media, ordering an Atlanta television station not to broadcast derogatory comments she made about a member of her staff on Saturday. McKinney was meeting with constituents and agreed to an exclusive interview with WGCL-TV, CBS 46, of Atlanta. During that interview, CBS 46 reporter Renee Starzyk asked McKinney what she is telling her constituents about the altercation. "Actually you, media people are...

My previous column was about the Christian Peacemakers and how enormous amounts of money and time were spent on rescuing them from their largely pointless and acutely political intervention in Iraq. I also said their ultimately selfish antics distracted from the genuine need to help Iraqis and that because these men were western and middle class, they received special treatment in the media. A week later, it is clear that Canadian James Loney in particular has been treated with a generosity and credulity that is at times quite bizarre. Please, in the name of common sense, can we stop claiming...

Pity the fool!

Motley Fool A Dubious Sign of the Times Tuesday March 7, 3:17 pm ET By Tim Beyers I've long wanted to own stock in New York Times (NYSE: NYT - News) for several reasons. I love the paper. I'm a big fan of About.com. And then there's sentimental angle: I'm a New York native. But there's one big reason why I'm not buying the stock. A check of the proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday reveals that chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and CEO Janet Robinson both received hefty bonuses despite meeting less than 60%...

Feb. 23, 2006 - Four months ago, Bode Miller sat across from me in the bar of a New York City hotel and shared his idea of what a perfect two weeks in Torino would look like. “For me,” he said, “the ideal Olympics would be to go in with all that pressure, all that attention and have performances that are literally tear-jerking, that make people put their heads down because they’re embarrassed at how emotional they’re getting, that make people want to try sports, talk to their kids, call their f---ing ex-wives—and come away with no medals. I think...

Tom Cruise gets nod for worst acting in '05 ‘War of the Worlds’ role scores Razzie nomination, as does Rob Schneider Updated: 8:52 a.m. ET Jan. 30, 2006 LOS ANGELES - Tom Cruise may have survived a Martian attack in last year’s remake of “War of the Worlds,” but he has failed to elude Hollywood’s movie police. The actor was among the contenders announced Monday for the annual Razzie Awards, which “honor” the worst achievements in film. Cruise will compete for the year’s worst actor award with Will Ferrell (“Bewitched,” “Kicking & Screaming”), Jamie Kennedy (”Son of the Mask”), Dwayne...

When asked by the media for his thoughts on the Hamas triumph in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, former President Jimmy Carter replied that while they have a terrorist past, at least they're not corrupt. One of the complaints by many in the Middle East was the corruption within the Palestinian Authority and Yasser Arafat's Fatah Party. Arafat himself squirreled away millions of dollars from aid packages that were intended to help the Palestinian people. However, Carter's comment appears to dismiss the years of death and destruction perpetrated by Hamas on the Jewish State. One of the first statements made by...

FINDLAY, Ohio -- The federal government is reaping a $1.1 million windfall from the estate of an Ohio woman. But the money comes with specific instructions. Margaret Taylor's will said the government has to use her fortune to help pay down the national debt. A spokesman for the Treasury Department said it may be their largest donation ever. Taylor died in November at age 98. She told her family that she planned to use her money to help people, but didn't reveal her plans. The executor of her will said he tried to talk Taylor out of giving her money...