Free Republic

Chinese consumers are responding to a powerful new marketing tactic that plays to a widespread fear of food contamination - the promise of safe groceries sold online. Pledging produce direct from the farm, vendors have found food is becoming one of the fastest-growing segments of Internet retailing as they cash in on scares from cadmium-tainted rice to recycled cooking oil. The trend is adding momentum to a Chinese online retail boom driven by a rapidly expanding middle class, with companies such as COFCO Ltd and Shunfeng Express betting that a decent slice of a 1.3 billion population will pay for...

There are two topics that you don’t discuss in Singapore: the weather and politics, because both generally remain the same. Food, on the other hand, is a subject that unifies the people of this small island like nothing else can. Eating out here can range from horrifically expensive - S$300 for a steak if you go to a celebrity chef restaurant - to terrific value, such as S$3 for a bowl of delicious noodles, eaten out of a plastic bowl while sitting under strip lighting. Yet it is the traditional and inexpensive food sold at hawker centres that sparks an...

What do you think Fred Phelps, the fringe preacher with the Westboro Baptist Church, would say about Alberta's floods? He'd say what he always says - that they are God's punishment for Canada because of our tolerance for gays. Or, as his protest placards say, "God Hates Fags." He's the idiot who protests at funerals of U.S. soldiers. See, he even blames wars on gays. Canada has our own versions of Fred Phelps. They say natural weather events, like seasonal floods, are "proof" that God Hates Oilsands. (They tend to say Mother Earth or Gaia.) As TV images of Albertans...

The rationale for the federal government’s “Head Start” program is to give disadvantaged students a boost with their school work. Sadly, though, a recently completed research study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reveals that students enrolled in the program actually do worse than similarly disadvantaged peers not in the program. The biggest deficits show up in math and behavior. Secretary Kathleen Sebelius urged that “we should not read too much into these findings. Given our society’s widespread access to computers, calculators, and cash registers that can do the math for us, proficiency in math may not...

Stung by being called an “idiot” by Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana) for his claim that victims of 2012′s Hurricane Sandy suffered more than victims of 2005′s Hurricane Katrina, Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev) attempted to explain his way out the scathing characterization. “My colleague’s focus on quantitative data overlooks qualitative differences between the two events,” Reid argued. “First, New Jersey and New York are states where many important people live. Many of the homes that were destroyed were million dollar properties. The same could be said for the businesses.” “Most of the properties destroyed by Katrina were more like broken down...

This is a guest post by Senator Ima Librul (D., Utopia) on the fine art of growing pineapples. I am a Librul and justly proud of the great good we are doing for the entire World. This is my creed: it is irresponsible to be concerned about the future when our own leaders and our other experts tell us that only good things will happen if we do exactly as they say. The brightest and best, we are never wrong! Don't think. Don't question. Just follow our Dear Leader. My small garden had thirty pineapple plants. Twenty of them had...

“I don’t think legitimate sportsmen are going to say, ‘I need an assault weapon to go hunting,’” Cuomo said, according to the New York Times. “There is a balance here — I understand the rights of gun owners; I understand the rights of hunters.” Cuomo indicated the state will likely force some kind of permit process on owners of semi-automatic “assault weapons.” In addition to generating revenue and expanding the size and reach of government, the effort will allow the state to confiscate the weapons of citizens who do not comply. “Confiscation could be an option. Mandatory sale to the...

"On this Thanksgiving Day, let me say this: God Bless America the only country on this [bleep] planet where you still have the freedom to build AKs in defense of Motherland! The only country where a [bleep] shovel can become an awesome weapon of death and destruction."

After finding a portrait subject, he asks her to put together a hot-pot meal using veggies and ingredients native to her country. They then assemble the foods into the shape of a gun and do a portrait shoot. Once the photograph is made, Ozawa and his model disassemble the delicious weapon, cook the ingredients, and share a meal together.

If President Obama is reelected, redistribution will go into even higher gear. I want His promise that I'll get mine. Now, so I will know how to vote. As President Obama well knows, the best socio-economic system ever devised is based on the premise "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." Now old and creaky, my abilities are few and my needs are great. When President Obama again makes history by being sworn in as our first reelected President of this century on January 20th, soon to be celebrated annually as ChristObamamas, there are some...

I just saw a funny Tweet from @jimnorton, in which he “condemns� Mitt Romney’s father for “murdering roses� when he placed one on his wife’s bedstand every night. (Romney scored emotionally in last night’s speech when he recalled that his mother found out his father had died because the rose was missing.)Thing is, Norton’s jibe is not quite as off the wall