Free Republic

Welcome to Sanity Island, where only adults are allowed. This morning, President Bush Visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. He was accompanied by some members of his administration including Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. On hand to welcome him were museum director, Sara Bloomfield and Elie Wiesel, about whom President Bush said, "I thank very much Elie Wiesel for joining us. He is a -- he's a big figure in the life of the world, as he should be. He speaks with moral clarity. And I can't thank you enough for being a leader of talking...

Kayak has been a long-time freeper, appearing on many threads, but most especially America ~ the Right Way! She is a stanch conservative, a good friend, and most especially a dear sister in Christ. In December 2006, she was diagnosed with lung cancer which was soon found to be metastasized to the brain and throughout her body.Her daughter, registered as Poppyseed, has been giving us updates when Kayak had to stop posting. This is the update posted most recently. So much has happened since my last message to you all. My whole family came down this past weekend, and my...

SENATE BILL 255-FN-A "requiring non-motorized vessels to display conservation decals issued by the fish and game department." SPONSORS: Sen. Barnes, Dist 17; Sen. Gallus, Dist 1; Sen. D'Allesandro, Dist 20 NH Senate Wildlife, Fish and Game Committee: Next/Last Hearing: WILDLIFE, FISH AND GAME     3/14/2007 1:00:00 PM     LOB 103 http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/ns/billstatus/commdetails.asp?txtcommcode=S35 Text of the bill: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2007/SB0255.html Bill Sponsors: Barnes (Republican) Gallus (Republican) D'Allesandro (Democrat) Contact information for representatives. NH State House:http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/default.html NH State Senate:http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/senate/

Awesome video of our troops telling it like it is. Take that muzzies!

The peaceniks strike back. Last week, I wrote about Joshua Sparling, a disabled 82nd Airborne Division veteran who says he was mistreated by anti-war protestors at a Jan. 29 rally in Washington, D.C.. Sparling and a few dozen others went to the National Mall to stage a counterprotest amid the tens of thousands of people denouncing U.S. involvement in Iraq. Sparling says he was cursed at, called names and threatened with physical harm. Since then, calls and letters have come in from the other side. A number of blogs and Internet sites have detailed Sparling’s activities, too. All together, they...

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a ThighMaster. 2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free. 3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a...

I received a FRmail tonight from Freeper kayak regarding a health issue that her doctors have discovered. Some of you, apparently, are already aware of this. I DO have her permission to put this thread up. She will not be on here to respond as she's still working and will be starting treatments. Anyway, from kayak....Several weeks ago as part of my routine annual physical I had a chest x-ray. When it came back showing some suspicious shadows, the doc ordered a CT scan which also showed the shadows. So last week I had a bronchoscopy and got the results...

WOW! I find this LIVE CAM of an African Waterhole to be quite interesting. It is nighttime now but you can still see a few things like bright flying moths. In the daylight in a few hours big animals should appear. Right now lots of insects chirping.

The 2006 FreeRepublic LexiconAKA "The Freepism, Freepology, Lingo, Dictionary, Terminology, Lore Handbook" A revised and condensed version of The Lexicon of FreeRepublic, culled from Lexicon of FreeRepublic - 4th Edition and Freeper Lingo Thread (the history and meening of 'Freepisms' including pictures). Thanks to the many Freepers who contributed! In this latest update, I have cut the emoticons and standard acronyms (LOL etc - which are readily available on the web and previous Lexicons) for the sake of brevity. I have attempted to include all definitions and histories provided to me and give credit to those who provided me the...

Kayaking a dog's life BY CAMMY CLARK STOCK ISLAND - The boaters heading out Cow Key Channel to the Atlantic could not believe their eyes. Traveling alongside the mangroves was a fleet of 12 kayaks, all carrying four-legged passengers, most of them quite soggy. Sweetie Pie was one of the many dogs who could not wait for playtime at the sandbar. The 1-year-old Maltese, unconcerned about messing up her white curly locks, jumped out of the kayak not long after it left Hurricane Hole Marina. In the Florida Keys, dogs on boats are about as commonplace as bait, beer and...

Hollywood agent-turned-documentary maker Pat Dollard has attacked George Clooney's outspoken anti-war stance. Dollard - the former agent of regular Clooney colleague Steven Soderbergh - is currently making a pro-war documentary about Marines fighting in Iraq. He was furious when Clooney urged more Democrats to speak out against the war and 'congratulated' himself for doing so. He tells PageSix.com, "I read something on the Internet in which someone was patting himself on the back for having the courage to oppose the war. They actually equate bravery with speaking out against the president because (losing fans) might cost them one less servant...

Multiple Choice Quiz 1. What is the Docex Project?<.B A. A new health education class taught to teens on how to use condoms in high school? B. Millions of documents sat deep within a warehouse that may shed some light on links between Saddam and Al Qaeda headquartered in Doha, Qatar. Recently they have been released by John Negroponte for bloggers to translate? C. A sequel to The Blair Witch Project coming out this fall? 2. What is Operation Able Danger? A. Its an episode of your child's favorite TV cartoon "Bob the Builder"? B. Its the name of the...

When our young men (and women) volunteer to serve in our military, it is usually with an eye to serving their country, even at the risk of their own lives. In the process of their service, they will take orders, constantly. Sometimes those orders will come from people they respect – even love. Sometimes, though, the orders will come from people they dislike, or disdain, or fear or hate. Yet the ones who last in the military learn to submerge their own will and keep silent, except when some truly outrageous or dangerous or illegal order is given – whereupon...

A power struggle between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his leading political antagonist Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is complicating the conflict between Iran and the international community over the country’s nuclear program. Both Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani are trying to use the nuclear issue for their maximum domestic political benefit, helping to stoke international alarm over Tehran’s intentions. Debate on the international response to Iran’s nuclear program has intensified since the April 11 announcement by Iran that it had successfully enriched a small amount of uranium. A day later, Iran’s deputy nuclear chief, Mohammad Saeedi, announced that the country would seek...

Former CENTCOM Commander, Gen. Anthony Zinni - who has called for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign because of his alleged incompetence in running the Iraq war - admitted six years ago that he made the disastrous decision to have the U.S.S. Cole use the port of Aden, Yemen for refueling, where the ship was blown up by al Qaeda terrorists. Worse still, at least one report indicates that Gen. Zinni may have played a role in an August 1998 leak that tipped off Osama bin Laden to an impending U.S. cruise missile attack - allowing the top terrorist to...

The "Right" to Illegality "We believe that immigrants, like women and like African-Americans before them, have rights in this country, and the time is ripe for a new civil rights moment." ‹ U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy I have a dream. I have a dream that, one day, Martin Luther King Jr. is going to rise from his grave, walk up to Sen. Ted Kennedy and say "nonviolent, my ass" and punch the senator right in the mouth. "A new civil rights movement?" Immigrants are "like African-Americans before them?" Is the senile senator from Massachusetts out of his pickled little mind?...

The Belmont Club History and History in the Making Friday, March 31, 2006 Pretty pictures 2 It's kinda nice when an Iraqi resistance conference provides some confirmation for the pictures I've been drawing. Iraq the Model's latest posts throws more light on the relationship of the "political struggle" in Iraq to the insurgency. These days in Beirut, the fourth conference for supporting the "Iraqi resistance" is being held. It came only less than a year after their grand failure 3rd conference which we wrote about back in August.The most notable statement given during this conference was made by Hasan...

NONE OF YOU thought of calling? I mean, I could see if it was a small dinner party: You thought I wouldn't mesh well; you already had a smugly self-obsessed, attention-needy columnist, maybe Mickey Kaus — I get it. But there were 500,000 of you at Saturday's pro-immigration rally downtown, more than 13% of the city's population, the largest gathering ever in L.A. This was a snub. Did you think I didn't own a white T-shirt to symbolize peace? Because I do. And I adore immigrants. My great-grandparents were immigrants. And I'm pretty sure the guy who waters our plants...

Use the link...these people speak for themselves. Mexica-Movement - Gran Marcha If you are a loyal Ameerican...be prepared to GET MAD!

Third Anniversary By Oliver North March 17, 2006 It began in the middle of the night, like so many other battles I've experienced. Here in the United States, it was still March 19 -- but along the Iraq-Kuwait border, it was already the 20th. My hastily scribbled notes for that night, scrawled in my reporter's notebook using night-vision goggles, recorded what my video camera was capturing: "Aircrew Final Briefing ... fully-loaded Royal Marines waiting for liftoff ... heavy artillery fires to northeast of LZ," and the fateful, "Dash Two down in fireball. No survivors." Inadvertently, my camera's night lens caught...

This is Thread #4 for all FReepers who took the Jung Typology Test,also known as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI) personality test. A special thanks to the people who offered their HTML expertise on the other thread. Some of them took some significant time out of their day to help, and I really appreciate it. I couldn't have posted this without their help! Physicist, ThePythonicCow, cgk, demoRat watcher, RedBloodedAmerican, DrewsDad, Eastbound, RunningWolf, ndt, & SouthernBoyupNorth. (Skip to next section)(Go straight to the TABLES!) Previous threads: Thread #1:Freeper Research Project: Freeper personality testsPosted by Alamo-GirlOn News/Activism ^ 02/23/2006 11:20:32 AM CST · 1,008 replies ·...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The last Global Geographic Literacy Survey, assessing the geographic knowledge of 18-24-year-olds in nine different countries -- Canada, France, Mexico, Great Britain, Japan, Italy, Sweden, Germany and the United States -- was, at best, a disappointment. It found, for example, that only 17 percent of young Americans could locate Afghanistan on a map; 29 percent could not correctly identify the Pacific Ocean; and 11 percent were unable to find the continental United States. If high-school geography classrooms around the United States are anything like that run by "teacher" Jay Bennish, at Overland High School in Aurora, Colorado,...

In recent weeks prominent conservatives — William F. Buckley, Niall Ferguson, Francis Fukuyama, George Will, to a name only a very few — have, in various ways, suggested that the war in Iraq was either a mistake or unwinnable, or both. The blowing up of the shrine at Samarra, together with subsequent sectarian killings in Baghdad and the failure so far to form an executive branch, were the most recent catalysts that apparently pushed a great number of wearied observers over the edge. Sometimes such remorse is coupled with louder lamentations about the failed foreign policy of the Bush administration...

<p>DUDE, WHERE'S MY CIVIL WAR? From Ralph Peters in Iraq March 5, 2006 -- BAGHDAD I'M trying. I've been trying all week. The other day, I drove another 30 miles or so on the streets and alleys of Baghdad. I'm looking for the civil war that The New York Times declared. And I just can't find it.</p>

G. K. Chesterton famously said something to this effect: When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing—they believe in anything. A good example of this is Umberto Eco’s novel Foucault’s Pendulum, in which a group of friends program a computer to “write” a book about secret hidden knowledge. Titled The Plan, the book is the result of random links between things like Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, the Knights Templar, and other crackpot ideas. While The Plan was intended as a prank, other people take it seriously, with tragic results. Well, Foucault’s Pendulum shows us how gullible unbelieving people are....

Guantanamo - Torture Revealed Scott Burgess has been combing through the newly released Guantanamo hearing transcripts, uncovering a horror beyond words: Guantanamo - Torture Revealed. During his time in Guantanamo, Mr. Abbasi (writing in the third person) alleges that he was: * subject to [unspecified] “mental stress and pressure� * “willfully misdirected ... to pray north� * deprived of “comfort items� * subjected to an [apparently failed] “attempt to withdraw Qur’an� * able to hear two guards having sex, while they “assumed he was asleep� * distracted from his prayer by the “sharp intake of breath� of a female...

Every two years, America looks to its Olympic athletes for an unparalleled display of drive, sacrifice, team spirit, and patriotism. Unfortunately, this year, many of our country’s best athletes provided us with a very different kind of display. Drive and sacrifice? Much-hyped skier Bode Miller barely managed to step out of the local bars long enough to participate in his events. Not surprising, then, that he didn’t win a single medal. Team spirit? Speedskaters Chad Hedrick and Shani Davis provided a whole new twist on that concept, with their very public bickering. Patriotism? How about figure skater Johnny Weir attending...

If you encountered someone who made his own granola, bought his veggies at a food co-op, wore Birkenstock sandals, and wanted to save the environment, if you’re like me, you’d probably think, well, there goes a lefty, or a liberal, or maybe an aging hippie. But the author of a new book says someone like that is just as likely to be a conservative Republican. In his book, Crunchy Cons, journalist Rod Dreher writes about a group of people he calls “crunchy conservatives,” a group that includes, among others, “hip homeschooling mamas,” “Birkenstocked Burkeans,” “gun-loving organic” farmers, and “right-wing nature...

Post your favorite "Reaganisms" here.

Mardi Gras in Iraq you say? That's right, who better to pull it off than a bunch of cajuns from the Louisiana National Guard! We had a parade and everyone was out there to watch the floats, catch beads, and have a good time...just another event that made soldiers feel more at home. We were even given the opportunity to drink a couple of beers, yes real beer...courtesy of the great folks at Budweiser! The photos are a combination of the parade and the beer drinking in the DFAC afterwards.http://www.armychic256bde.com/id42.html

First vanity - the link is to a hillarious Bush impersonator at a comedy club with Jeff Foxworthy and others.

Since some muslims seem to be upset about the cartoons let's party to ease the tensions!

Original: What you get to work with:

Snorkeling Boat Captain Helps Scare Shark Away From Kayakers MAKENA, Maui, Hawaii -- A visitor from Minnesota had a frightening encounter with a shark on Maui on Wednesday. The shark encounter happened between the Molokini Crater and Makena off the Maui coast in the morning. Dan Lankheit, 57, was kayaking with a friend when he said a huge shark nudged his kayak and wouldn't stop following him. Lankheit and his friend, Bob, were kayaking halfway between Molokini Crater and Makena when the shark appeared. "I felt something and looked down and this shark brushed my kayak," Lankheit said. Lankheit said...

Tuesday night at the Boston Market on East Bay Drive in Clearwater: Guys behind the counter are slinging Chuck Norris jokes. "You know what kind of furniture Chuck Norris has in his house?" says Matt Kindred, 18. "Bowflex." Matt tells another: "Chuck Norris never blinks his eyes. Never." Behind him, manager Richard Moody, 22, echoes: "Never!" Matt executes a pirouette and whips a finger at countermate Evan Heebner, 19. Evan tells the one about how Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. "Too bad Chuck Norris never cries," Evan says. "Ooooh, good one," everyone says. * * * Teenagers all across the...

NEW YORK - Kanye West, with a crown of thorns atop his head, poses as Jesus Christ on the cover of the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone. The outspoken rapper defends his brash attitude inside the magazine's pages, on newsstands Friday. He is also pictured posing as Muhammad Ali. "In America, they want you to accomplish these great feats, to pull off these David Copperfield-type stunts," he says. "You want me to be great, but you don't ever want me to say I'm great?" West also says his hit song "Gold Digger" was the best song last year and that...

<p>Investigative reporter and talk show host Mark Morano (CNSNEWS and Rightalk.com) who broke the Murtha "fake but accurate" medals story appears on Howie Kurtz/CNN and scores one for the good guys!</p>

I supported the Iraq war as, with reservations, I still do. Its opponents have a great deal of self-justification to do, all the more as the details of Saddam Hussein's iniquities unfold in the Baghdad courtroom where he is being tried. A true Machiavellian would use the trial to argue, however, that the West's mistake was to make an enemy of Saddam when he could have been a useful ally. Indeed, during the 1980s, when he was fighting a war almost to the death against Iran, he was a useful ally. How useful, at this time when Iran has blatantly...

Fear and Complexity The Independent Institute San Francisco, CA November 15, 2005 by Michael Crichton  Is this really the end of the world?  Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods? No, we simply live on an active planet.  Earthquakes are continuous, a million and a half of them every year, or three every minute. A Richter 5 quake every six hours, a major quake every 3 weeks. A quake as destructive as the one in Pakistan every 8 months.  It’s nothing new, it’s right on schedule. At any moment there are 1,500 electrical storms on the planet. A tornado touches down every six...

SLIDELL, La. - A Louisiana man who stayed home when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast spent his time during the storm capturing video of the destruction. Kennard Jackley of Slidell is retired from the Merchant Marines and spent his life out at sea. He has never evacuated during a hurricane and stayed behind for this one, although he did send his wife to Texas. He captured home video of the waters of Lake Pontchartrain as they rose outside and ended up sending him to the second story of his home. Jackley estimates that Katrina did about $50,000 of damage...

Malaysia to investigate "Bigfoot" From: Agence France-Presse   December 29, 2005   MALAYSIA'S wildlife department says it will investigate claims that man-like "Bigfoot" beasts are roaming the jungles of southern Johor state. Newspapers have this week aired stories of sightings of the legendary creatures, and photographs of a giant footprint left near a jungle swamp. The director of the wildlife department's Biodiversity Conservation Division, Siti Hawa Yatim, said they would examine the prints, which reportedly measure up to 45 centimetres). "We are going to check first if the case is a true one," Siti Hawa said. She said officials...

Speech to the Claremont Institute earlier this month. So far, Steyn is still being introduced...

1. DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering it against that freshly painted part you were drying. 2. WIRE WHEEL: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the work bench at the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar calluses in about the time it takes you to say, "Ouch..." 3. ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning steel pop rivets in their holes until you...

Everyone knows by now that Pissant is not an expert, like MaximusofTexas, when it comes to movie reviews. The main problem of course is that Pissant has generally avoided anything that Hollywood has produced in the last 20 years. Fortuantely, most of the cinematic classics were made well before this self-imposed boycott started. So now, I will list the definitive "most powerful moments". They may be sad, scary, heartwarming, patriotic, etc. Top 7 Most Powerful Moments in Cinema History7. The Deerhunter- Russian Roulette POW scene --The actors in the Deerhunter, particularly DeNiro and Cristopher Walken make it seem incredibly real....

Like, I am sure, many other believers in what this country has been trying to do in the Middle East and particularly in Iraq, I have found my thoughts returning in the past year to something that Tom Paine, writing at an especially dark moment of the American Revolution, said about such times. They are, he memorably wrote, "the times that try men's souls," the times in which "the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot" become so disheartened that they "shrink from the service of [their] country." But Paine did not limit his anguished derision to former supporters of the...

Look what I found!! Source: History Forum If World War Two had been an online Real Time Strategy game, the chat room traffic would have gone something like this. *Hitler[AoE] has joined the game.* *Eisenhower has joined the game.* *paTTon has joined the game.* *Churchill has joined the game.* *benny-tow has joined the game.* *T0J0 has joined the game.* *Roosevelt has joined the game.* *Stalin has joined the game.* *deGaulle has joined the game.* Roosevelt: hey sup T0J0: y0 Stalin: hi Churchill: hi Hitler[AoE]: cool, i start with panzer tanks! paTTon: lol more like panzy tanks T0JO: lol Roosevelt: o...

Herewith, admittedly from the safety of the glorious nation called The United States of America, far from Ar-Ramadi, a few respectful thoughts about the war in Iraq: 1.) Conducting the war against al-Qaeda and the terrorists is a major drain on the energies of this administration. It would be a major drain on the energies of any administration. For Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald to be further draining the energies of the administration with his perjury indictment of Scooter Libby would be a matter for the most urgent concern if the charges against Libby were serious. But since by common consent of...

In recent weeks, by claiming that President Bush lied us into the Iraq war, many on the Left have restarted their efforts to rewrite history. But this revisionism isn’t new. In the midst of the 2004 Presidential election, the cries were just as loud. The Bush Administration is finally pushing back, and many conservative bloggers are asking their readers to Google Clinton, Iraq, 1998 for all the information they need. Last fall, The American Enterprise debunked many of these same urban legends. Urban Legends About the Iraq War Urban Legend: The Bush Administration in general, and the Vice President and...

How To Lose A War: The Sequel By Oliver North November 18, 2005 Since October of 2001, our FOX News "War Stories" unit has been documenting the remarkable young Americans fighting the Global War on Terror. We have covered thousands of them on the decks of ships in the Persian Gulf, on combat patrols in the shadow of the Hindu Kush, in gunfights along the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates and gone to hospitals in Iraq, Germany and the U.S. with the wounded. Throughout, there has been a common bond among these "warriors of Sept. 11" -- a steadfast...

November 21, 2005 -- QUIT. It's that simple. There are plenty of more complex ways to lose a war, but none as reliable as just giving up. Increasingly, quitting looks like the new American Way of War. No matter how great your team, you can't win the game if you walk off the field at half-time. That's precisely what the Democratic Party wants America to do in Iraq. Forget the fact that we've made remarkable progress under daunting conditions: The Dems are looking to throw the game just to embarrass the Bush administration. Forget about the consequences. Disregard the immediate...