Free Republic

This is a letter we wrote today to the parents of Sarah Palin, Chuck and Sally Heath, in Wasilla, Alaska: Dear Mr. and Mrs. Heath, We were among the forty million Americans who witnessed Governor Palin's entry onto the national stage last week. As parents of four, we could not help but sense the solemn pride that must be yours to have made such an exceptional contribution to our country. At the conclusion of President Lincoln's service to his nation, his Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, observed, "Now he belongs to the ages." At the conclusion of Governor Palin's...

This is a letter we wrote today to the parents of Sarah Palin, Chuck and Sally Heath, in Wasilla, Alaska: Dear Mr. and Mrs. Heath, We were among the forty million Americans who witnessed Governor Palin's entry onto the national stage last week. As parents of four, we could not help but sense the solemn pride that must be yours to have made such an exceptional contribution to our country. At the conclusion of President Lincoln's service to his nation, his Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, observed, "Now he belongs to the ages." At the conclusion of Governor Palin's...

Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka said that she and other members will picket Ledger’s United States memorial services, not those held in his native Australia. “You cannot live in defiance of God,” she said. “He got on that big screen with a big, fat message: God is a liar and it’s OK to be gay.” A press release circulated by the church references Leviticus 18:22 in the Bible, which states that “thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”

Hollywood actor Heath Ledger has been found dead in his New York apartment, according to police. He was 28. More to follow...

COMBAT OUTPOST CLEARY — Using a school in the city of al Wahida, Soldiers from a Fort Bragg, N.C., Civil Affairs battalion attached to the 3rd Infantry Divsion set up a one-day clinic for Iocal residents July 28. Known as a cooperative medical engagement, the operation requires Coalition and Iraqi forces to come together and provide medical treatment in prescribed areas, said Staff Sgt. Patrick R. Weston, special operations medical noncommissioned officer, Civil Affairs Team Alpha 712th, Company A, 97th Civil Affairs Battalion. Physician assistants and unit medics out of COP Cleary diagnosed and provided medicine to those in need....

'Too Fat' Patients Denied NHS Operations By Thomas Moore Health correspondent Updated: 23:27, Saturday April 28, 2007   Patients are being denied operations on the NHS simply because they are overweight or smoke, a survey by Sky News has found.   Six million people affected Nine primary care trusts have a specific policy to refuse joint replacements to obese patients. And four will not consider orthopaedic surgery if patients smoke.In all, six million patients live in areas affected by so-called lifestyle rationing.Jean Ryan has been told she cannot have her hip replaced until she loses weight. But she says that...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Supporters of President Bush clashed with anti-war activists as they wound their way through California after rallying in the hometown of Cindy Sheehan, the mother who started a protest camp outside Bush's Texas ranch. Conservative activists and military families embarked on the tour Monday, calling it "You don't speak for me, Cindy!" A verbal confrontation erupted when the caravan arrived in Sacramento and was met by anti-war protesters chanting for Bush to bring home the troops. Sheehan supporter Dan Elliott, 71, confronted caravan members by waving a sign reading "Death is not support" and heckling one...

It has been sobering this past week watching some of my "woollier" colleagues (in Vicki Woods's self-designation) gradually awake to the realisation that the real suicide bomb is "multiculturalism". Its remorseless tick-tock, suddenly louder than the ethnic drumming at an anti-globalisation demo, drove poor old Boris Johnson into rampaging around this page last Thursday like some demented late-night karaoke one-man Fiddler on the Roof, stamping his feet and bellowing, "Tradition! Tradition!" Boris's plea for more Britishness was heartfelt and valiant, but I'm not sure I'd bet on it. The London bombers were, to the naked eye, assimilated - they ate...

Former British PM Sir Edward Heath Dies By MATT MOORE ASSOCIATED PRESS LONDON (AP) - Sir Edward Heath, the prime minister who led England into what is now the European Union but lost the Conservative Party leadership to Margaret Thatcher, died Sunday. He was 89. Heath, who governed England from 1970-1974, died at his home in the southern cathedral city of Salisbury. A carpenter's son who broke the tradition of blue bloods leading the British Conservative Party, he was a born politician whose major achievement was to negotiate Britain's 1973 entry into the European Community. The entry into what became...

What is a Ponzi scheme? It's a fraud disguised as a legitimate business that pays earlier investors with money from later ones. Large returns early on convince people the investment is safe. As the scam progresses, they often put in more. But the momentum of raising cash from new investors and paying it out can't be sustained. Mary Anne Hughes thought she had a sure bet. Looking to recoup stock-market losses, the Canyon Lake woman dropped by several investment seminars a month. Then she found D.W. Heath & Associates. She liked the pitch, and she liked the promised return....

From leaky roofs to secret agents: how the files I found in Iraq's looted foreign ministry cast light on the paranoid world of Saddam Hussein How many Iraqi officials does it take to fix the leaky roof of a diplomat's house in London? How long does a skilled translator need to convert one of George Galloway's parliamentary speeches into Arabic? In almost 1, 000 pages of Arabic prose, each stamped with the Eagle crest of Iraq, the files found inside the foreign ministry in Baghdad cast a somewhat surreal light on the questions that turned the bureaucratic wheels of Saddam...

The Cholesterol Myths by Uffe Ravnskov, M.D., Ph.D.1. Your cholesterol tells very little about your future healthCholesterol is a peculiar molecule. It is often called a lipid or a fat. However, the chemical term for a molecule such as cholesterol is alcohol, although it doesn't behave like alcohol. Its numerous carbon and hydrogen atoms are put together in an intricate three dimensional network, impossible to dissolve in water. All living creatures use this indissolvability cleverly, incorporating cholesterol into their cell walls to make cells waterproof. This means that cells of living creatures can regulate their internal environment undisturbed by...

The latest democrat tactic is clear: They are pushing the re-re-re-newed "crisis" of health care - particularly abusing the "40 million uninsured" health care line that constantly pulls a cry-line to liberals/socialists who want to control our lives. I know that a similar number (39 million) (?) was used by Hillary! in her socialized medicine crisis in '91-'93. But, where does the "40 million" come from? Is it as "valid" as the 3 million homeless the democrats have always used to attack republicans? (And the same homeless who were ignored by the media when Clinton was in the White House.)...

THE year was 1993 and Iraq had a problem. It desperately needed some parts for one of its power stations but the equipment, manufactured by a company in Britain, was being blocked under United Nations sanctions. Up sprang Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf. He was then foreign minister but was latterly better known as the overly optimistic information chief nicknamed Comical Ali after claiming that American troops were being slaughtered at the gates of Baghdad when they were actually seizing control of the city. Al-Sahaf had a plan. Like many of his other schemes that came to light last week in documents...