Free Republic

Just heard sad news. Los Angeles TV newsman and talk radio legend George Putnam has died. He was 94. George showed me great kindness, championing my book Invasion and inviting me on his show frequently to talk about immigration enforcement and national security when few outside the border states cared. He penned a weekly online column right up until the last few months of his life. He had a rich, full, colorful career. He was a gentleman and a patriot. And I was glad and grateful to know him. Once, during a live radio interview, my then-two-year-old daughter woke up...

Legend of the Crystal Skulls Volume 61 Number 3, May/June 2008 by Jane MacLaren Walsh Along with superstars like Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, and Shia LaBeouf, the newest Indiana Jones movie promises to showcase one of the most enigmatic classes of artifacts known to archaeologists, crystal skulls that first surfaced in the 19th century and that specialists attributed to various "ancient Mesoamerican" cultures. In this article, Smithsonian anthropologist Jane MacLaren Walsh shares her own adventures analyzing the artifacts that inspired Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (in theaters May 22), and details her efforts tracking down a...

Myron Cope, colorful sports broadcaster and reporter whose Terrible Towel remains the banner of the Steelers nation, has died. In declining health since even before his 2005 retirement after a record 35 years of Steelers broadcasts, Mr. Cope died this morning of respiratory failure at the Covenant at South Hills nursing home in Mt. Lebanon. He was 79. One of the last of the great sports characters, Mr. Cope's life and career were nothing less than book-worthy, even if he had to write it himself. Twice. "Double Yoi" it was called both times, the second an updated version of the...

SATURDAY AM: Some amazing numbers were posted Friday for this weekend's movie releases. Warner Bros' I Am Legend opens closer to $80 million than the studio's hoped-for $50 million from Friday through Sunday after making a whopping $29.6 million Friday in 3,606 theaters.... *snip* And the bottom fell out of costly domestic flop The Golden Compass from New Line, which forked out $200+ million to make it, in its second weekend in release. I know, I know, the pic is doing OK overseas. But the fantasy pic is so lost domestically it earned only an anemic $2.6 million Friday from...

breaking.

"WATER monsters" appeared in Kanasi Lake in northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region again, Xinhua news agency reported. The "monsters" created a large wave in the lake about 8:20am on Thursday, and several witnesses recorded them with digital cameras until they disappeared eight minutes later, the report said. The 15 unidentified objects gathered together for some time, and then scattered to form a line like a fleet of ships, the report said. But they were reportedly much bigger than cruise ships. Kanasi, the country's deepest alpine lake, is at the center of the Kanasi nature reserve, the only Chinese reserve located...

RIO BRANCO, Brazil — Perhaps it is nothing more than a legend, as skeptics say. Or maybe it is real, as those who claim to have seen it avow. But the mere mention of the mapinguary, the giant slothlike monster of the Amazon, is enough to send shivers down the spines of almost all who dwell in the world’s largest rain forest. The folklore here is full of tales of encounters with the creature, and nearly every Indian tribe in the Amazon, including those that have had no contact with one another, have a word for the mapinguary (pronounced ma-ping-wahr-EE)....

WASHINGTON, June 26, 2007 – Standing in the Pentagon briefing room here, preparing to record a video message to troops deployed abroad, 70-year-old Charlie Daniels’ jaws, covered in tufts of white whiskers, work away at a wad of gum. As the camera starts rolling, he halts production. Charlie Daniels addresses an audience of military and civilian personnel in the Pentagon after receiving the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service for his support of U.S. troops around the world, as Michael L. Dominguez, principal deputy under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, looks on,...

With so much time on the track, you would think Cotton Owens has seen it all. "In 1964, I drove my last race," he remembers. But what the Nascar legend witnessed Thursday morning, nearly broke his heart.

The story of Romulus and Remus is almost as old as Rome. The orphan twins were suckled by a she-wolf in a cave on the banks of the Tiber. Romulus grew up to found Rome in 753 B. C. Historians have long since dismissed the story as a charming legend. The 19th-century historian Theodor Mommsen said: “The founding of the city in the strict sense, such as the legend assumes, is of course to be reckoned out of the question: Rome was not built in a day.” Yet the legend is as imperishable as Mommsen’s skeptical verdict, and it has...

MOSUL, Iraq, April 30, 2007 — Soldiers from Company A, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, are on the frontlines every day here in Mosul, Iraq, and have a mixture of emotions on the varied experiences in the second largest city in the country. "The thing that makes me feel safe is when I hear the air support overhead. I know when we get pinned down, I can look up and hear those rockets and know the insurgents are going to pay for their damages." U.S. Army Sgt. Jesse Aguilera “We are the first ones out after something happens,” said Riverside,...

Here again, with the right link - the other was not right. The Custer legacy - Custer division in World War II, the 7th cavalry in Ia Drang and Baghdad, Custer's Civil War veterans... It's an American legacy.

Fighter legend Neville Duke dies Aviation historians have paid tribute to one of Britain's most decorated World War II fighter pilots who died shortly after his last flight. Sqn Ldr Neville Duke, 85, flew 485 sorties achieving 28 air combat victories, including seven aircraft shot down in seven days. In 1953 he broke the then world air speed record achieving 727.63mph. Sqn Ldr Duke, from Lymington, Hants, was taken ill after flying his aircraft G-Zero with Gwen, his wife of 60 years. He died in hospital in Surrey on Sunday after suffering an aneurysm. A spokesman for Tangmere Military Aviation...

Legend of the Lamb-Plant Judith J. Ho Library Technician Special Collections National Agricultural Library, USDA Beltsville, MD Through history, science has crystallized from many divergent paths. From Roger Bacon (1214-94) until well into the present century, discoveries were made and lost and made again.1 The word "biology" was not even coined until 1802. It has been said that if there is a moment at which biology began, it must have been 1615, when William Harvey, then the Court physician of Charles I of England, conceived of the heart as a pump, circulating the blood. The idea that a living body...

Through the years one of the questions I've been asked most has been, ''What was it like to fight Bruce Lee?'' Of course we never actually fought off-screen, because Bruce didn't compete with me in professional tournaments. We did, however, periodically spar. Believe it or not, it was fun! I can say that because Bruce and I were friends, and we deeply respected each other as masters of martial arts. My debt to Bruce LeeIn a way, Bruce gave me my first movie break in 1968, when he was the stunt coordinator for the ''Wrecking Crew,'' starring Dean Martin. My...

DALLAS -- Lamar Hunt, the pro sports visionary who owned the Kansas City Chiefs and came up with the term "Super Bowl," died Wednesday night. He was 74. Hunt, a founder of the American Football League and one of the driving forces behind the AFL-NFL merger, died at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas of complications from prostate cancer, Chiefs spokesman Bob Moore said. Hunt battled cancer for several years and was hospitalized the day before Thanksgiving with a partially collapsed lung. Doctors discovered that the cancer had spread, and Hunt had been under heavy sedation since last week. "He was a...

12/5/2006 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- During World War II, a special wartime publication, limited to 5,000 copies, brought some welcome light in the allies' darkest days. But this "rarest of the rare" books appealed to more than just yesterday's Airmen -- it charmed their children. Now, after 63 years, and the hard-fought efforts of one Air Force historian, the book will again be made available to Airmen in time for the holiday season. The gremlins have returned. In commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the U.S. Air Force, the Army Air Force Exchange Service is distributing a limited edition of...

As the Republican base fragments and Christian conservatives consider a “fast” from politics, the polling data point to a mid-term Republican thumping. Less than two weeks from now, Republicans will begin their post-mortem soul searching. And as the corpses of their House and Senate majorities grow cold, so should Karl Rove’s 2006 campaign strategy.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20, 2006 -- The hot dog stand in the Pentagon’s center courtyard, which has long been a source of Cold War intrigue, will be torn down in the coming months and replaced with a new eating facility. The hot dog stand in the Pentagon’s center courtyard, which has long been a source of Cold War speculation, folklore and legend, will be torn down in the coming months. During the Cold War, the Soviets reportedly thought the hot dog stand led to a secret underground bunker. Photo by Steven Donald Smith  '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “Rumor...

Fidel Castro's illness has renewed interest in a legend of Cuba's patron saint predicting the death of a terrible ruler in the fourth decade of his reign. Stories about the prediction are making the rounds on the Internet -- with some variations -- the Miami Herald said Saturday. The legend begins in the 1850s and goes something like this: A Spanish priest, San Antonio María Claret, had been sent to Cuba to become archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, coincidentally Castro's home province. While riding his horse through Sierra Maestra -- also coincidentally Castro's mountain rebel stronghold in the mid-1950s --...

A Waterloo man and his dog made a harrowing escape from the clutches of a vicious black bear Thursday while portaging near Wawa, Ont. Tom Tilley, 55, killed the nearly 200-pound bear by jumping on its back and stabbing the aggressive animal with a six-inch hunting knife after his dog alerted him and distracted the bear. "Love is a very powerful emotion and my thought right away was, 'You're not going to kill my dog,' " Tilley said yesterday. "I really consider my dog a hero. Without that first warning I would have had the bear clamping down on my...

The surest sign that Stanley Hiller Jr. was just a kid when he designed the first helicopter to fly successfully in the Western United States was the field on which he chose to test it in 1944: the football stadium of UC Berkeley. A novice helicopter pilot, he learned to fly the bright-yellow contraption dubbed the Hiller-copter while it was anchored to several cars. He wore what might pass for safety gear among 19-year-olds: a T-shirt and slacks.

NEW YORK -- Keith Jackson thinks this is the right time for him to retire. Jackson, widely regarded as the voice of college football, has decided to stop broadcasting games. "I'm finished with play-by-play forever," he told The New York Times. Jackson spent some 40 years calling the action in a folksy, down-to-earth manner that made him one of the most popular play-by-play personalities in the business. "Keith Jackson is a man of great character and a legendary broadcaster," ESPN and ABC Sports president George Bodenheimer said. "For decades, his unmistakable style defined college football for millions of fans. While...

Two-for-one day today. In Palestine, the group Hamas Was elected o'er Fatah, alas! Condoleeza Rice Then warned them to play nice Lest the United States kick their ass! This morning it's now Groundhog Day The sight of his shadow will say to Punxsutawney Phil if we'll have six weeks' chill or if winter is going away!

During his days as a Navy pilot, Randy "Duke" Cunningham headed a squadron whose members poked fun at each other by writing humorous entries in a journal dubbed the "hit log." Cunningham would make entries in the book from time to time, singling out his subordinates for good-natured ribbing. But his writing was so riddled with misspellings and tortured punctuation that a junior officer took to diagramming the sentences, describing Cunningham's grammatical mistakes as "Dukelexsia." Miffed at the insult, Cunningham got rid of the logbook, said a former member of the squadron, Bob Clement. "Everybody knew he was a nice...

Check out the promotional ad for this Thursday evening's (December 29, 2005) episode of ABC's Primetime. The promo is for the story, "On the Trail of Pope Joan" (audiotape on file; emphasis mine): "Diane Sawyer takes you on the trail of a passionate mystery. Just as intriguing as The Da Vinci Code. Chasing down centuries-old clues hidden even inside the Vatican. Could a woman disguised as a man have been Pope? Thursday night. One astonishing Primetime." It doesn't get much uglier than this, folks. Quite simply, there was never a female pope, or "Pope Joan." The tale is a complete...

Charles Darwin, the 19th century geologist who wrote the treatise 'The Origin of Species, by means of Natural Selection' defined evolution as "descent with modification". Darwin hypothesized that all forms of life descended from a common ancestor, branching out over time into various unique life forms, due primarily to a process called natural selection. However, the fossil record shows that all of the major animal groups (phyla) appeared fully formed about 540 million years ago, and virtually no transitional life forms have been discovered which suggest that they evolved from earlier forms. This sudden eruption of multiple, complex organisms is...

The old sergeant platoon was patrolling in an area they had never been before and one of the goon squad was quick to point out that “Kilroy” had already been here. The age old sign of “KILROY WAS HERE” was chalked onto the side of a burned out building.

Night Unto Reagan The Gipper makes a Hollywood return. By John Meroney , National Review, August 04, 2005 On February 8, 1950, some of Hollywood's brightest lights gathered at the Beverly Hills Hotel for the kind of glamorous, star-studded soiree typically held on Academy Awards night. While it was Oscar season in Hollywood, the event for which Cecil B. DeMille, Harry Cohn, George Burns, Ed Wynn, Jane Wyman and some 600 others turned out had nothing to do with the film industry's annual awards ceremony. Instead, it was a formal tribute to Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan? The same Ronald Reagan...

There occurred violent earthquakes and floods. And in a single day and night of misfortune... the island of Atlantis disappeared in the depths of the sea." This account, written by Plato more than 2,300 years ago, set scientists on the trail of the lost city of Atlantis. Did it ever exist? And if so, where was it located, and when did it disappear? In a recent paper in Geology, Marc-Andre Gutscher of the European Institute for Marine Studies in Plouzané gives details of one candidate for the lost city: the submerged island of Spartel, west of the Straits of Gibraltar....

The legendary creature "Bigfoot" has been spotted again, this time in Canada, where nine people in the Yukon community of Teslin claim to have seen the legendary creature. According to the CBC, the witnesses, some of whom are children, saw the hairy, human-like creature pass in front of a house window, and then later behind an abandoned car near some houses last weekend. Roger Smarch of Teslin, Canada, shows off track where mysterious creature was spotted (courtesy: CBC) Those who claim to have seen Bigfoot, which is also known as a sasquatch, said they heard trees snapping and creaking despite...

LINVILLE FALLS, N.C. - A full moon illuminates Linville Gorge, painting the river below in a pale, hazy glow. It's quite a view, though hardly the clear one Dan Caton had hoped for. Caton carefully scans the surrounding trees and studies the horizon over the low-lying ridge of Brown Mountain, trying to catch a glimpse of a spooky ball of light or a fleeting sparkle in the darkness. The Appalachian State University physics and astronomy professor is chasing the elusive Brown Mountain Lights, a legend that has lured tourists for decades. But in 20 visits over the years, Caton has...

Mosaic inspired image of England's favourite saintBy Norman Hammond, Archaeology CorrespondentTHE earliest known template for the image of St George slaying the dragon has been found in Syria, archaeologists believe. A mosaic floor dating from approximately AD260 depicting the figure who became the patron saint of England has been found in the city of Palmyra in the Syrian desert. Experts say that the portrait is one of the finest classical mosaics yet uncovered and may even be the source of the St George legend. George was reputedly a Roman soldier, martyred in Palestine some 1,700 years ago. The mosaic shows...

/begin my translation   Budda who went to the West....   "Not as a religion, but as a legend, spreading from Persia to Greece to Spain"Institute for East-West Cultural Exchange: "revered as a saint in the Middle Age" Lee Han-soo hslee@chosun.com  Date : 2005.06.24 Buddha went to the East as well as to the West, according to a new research. The life and teaching of Buddha born in India spread to China and Korea, eventually to Japan, while it spawned Tibetan Buddhism in the North. It was established as a 'religion' in the East. It spread to many S.E. Asian countries in the South,...

Curtis Pitts, the legendary designer of the Pitts Special, has died today. A brief biography, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the Pitts Special. The Pitts Special is part of American aviation history. An early Pitts Special airplane is in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. Pitts Special airplanes are also in the Experimental Aviation Association Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin as well as the British Museum in London and many other aviation museums around the world. The Pitts Special was designed by Curtis Pitts and is acknowledged as the worlds leading competition aerobatic and airshow...

IF YOU had asked your great-great-grandmother if she believed in fairies, she would have looked at you askance. Believe in fairies? Of course she did! Ninety-five per cent of Scots continued to believe in fairies right up until the middle of the 19th century. These were not the diminutive, be-winged fairies of 1800s children's books. No, these were strange folk who bewitched you, killed your cattle and kidnapped your wives and daughters. Fairy lore flowed through the centuries, their presence acknowledged in ballads, poems and stories. They came in all shapes and sizes and different parts of Scotland had different...

Loch Ness Monster Finally Identified Forensic Artist and private investigator William McDonald, finally identifies what Loch Ness Monster may be. (PRWEB) April 7, 2005 -- After nearly 1,500 years of conjecture, it appears the Loch Ness Monster may finally be identified. According to American Forensic Artist and private investigator William McDonald, the famous lake monster known as “Nessie” is neither a plesiosaur or prehistoric reptile, but a real, predatory species of water animal possessing the ability to hunt on land. In the winter months of 2004, McDonald photographed tracks left by a large animal on a mud-covered Loch Ness shoreline...

General Fitzen on the Terrorist Threat posed to America.

LITTLETON, Colorado, NOV. 28, 2004 (Zenit.org).- The story of the Holy Grail has spawned numerous works of fiction and fantasy, including popular films. The truth about the actual whereabouts of the cup is less clear. One scholar, Janice Bennett, author of "St. Laurence and the Holy Grail" (Ignatius), believes that the cup's history can be traced from St. Peter's journey to Rome, to St. Laurence in the third century, and then to its final resting place in Spain. Bennett holds a master's in Spanish literature from the University of Colorado, and a certificate in Advanced Bible Studies from the Catholic...

Urban Legends and Folklore IQ and Voter Preference in 2004 Presidential Election Netlore Archive: In which the results of the 2004 U.S. presidential election are correlated with purported average IQ of voters in each state Description: Net hoax Circulating since: Nov. 2004 (this version) Status: False Analysis: See below IQ and Voter Preference State Average IQ 2004 1 Connecticut 113 Kerry 2 Massachusetts 111 Kerry 3 New Jersey 111 Kerry 4 New York 109 Kerry 5 Rhode Island 107 Kerry 6 Hawaii 106 Kerry 7 Maryland 105 Kerry 8 New Hampshire 105 Kerry 9 Illinois 104 Kerry 10 Delaware 103...

ALAPAHA, Ga. - Residents of this small farming town gathered Saturday to celebrate Hogzilla, a 12-foot-long wild pig that was supposedly shot by a hunting guide last summer and quickly grew into a worldwide legend. The festival comes five months after the 1,000-pound hog was killed when it wandered out of swamps along the nearby Alapaha River, a haven for swine that escape pig farms and start living off the land. The prodigious porker was remembered with a hog-calling contest and a greased-pig chase, as well as a float featuring a life-size replica of Hogzilla. "Everybody is happy, smiling, excited....

Where was Atlantis? Sundaland fits the bill, surely! by Dr. Sunil Prasannan Dr. Sunil Prasannan takes a brief time-out from his NMR spectroscopic studies to suggest a Southeast Asian location for Atlantis as described in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias. OK, so I'm an orthodox scientist, but don't let that bother you - I'm really an OK guy! As I have already explained on the Mysteries message board, I don't intend this to be an exhaustive essay, but as I have been asked for more detail, I will gladly provide it. Neither do I wish to pretend I am the...

Tracking down the 'jungle yeti' By David Green BBC News Online, Manchester Adam Davies took a cast of the footprint which was then analysed Two amateur explorers hope to prove the existence of the mythical "jungle yeti" by capturing the creature on film. Adam Davies, of Bramhall, Greater Manchester, and Andrew Sanderson, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, are travelling to Sumatra in Indonesia to hunt it down. Three years ago, the pair found a footprint and hairs which, when analysed by scientists, did not match any known species. They believe it is evidence the orang pendek, as it is called, does exist. The...

Power Companies Warning from Florida It's been a week here in Florida since Hurricane Charley. My workplace got electric power back Wednesday by a crew from Georgia Power. My new job at a small business employer is getting tax relief, so I got paid for the days I couldn't work. No lost wages is pretty cool. My home power was restored a day later by a power company from somewhere while I was at work. Power companies from more than eight states have poured into hurricane ravaged Florida according to a local newspaper. I have seen power workers from Georgia,...

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Atlantis, the legendary island nation over whose existence controversy has raged for thousands of years, was actually Ireland, according to a new theory by a Swedish scientist. Atlantis, the Greek philosopher Plato wrote in 360 BC, was an island in the Atlantic Ocean where an advanced civilization developed some 11,500 years ago until it was hit by a cataclysmic natural disaster and sank beneath the waves. Geographer Ulf Erlingsson, whose book explaining his theory will be published next month, says the measurements, geography, and landscape of Atlantis as described by Plato match Ireland almost exactly. "I am...

LONG before the broomstick became popular with witches in medieval Europe, the flying carpet was being used by thieves and madmen in the Orient. Factual evidence for what was a long-standing myth has now been found by a French explorer, Henri Baq, in Iran. Baq has discovered scrolls of well-preserved manuscripts in underground cellars of an old Assassin castle at Alamut, near the Caspian Sea. Written in the early thirteenth century by a Jewish scholar named Isaac Ben Sherira,' these manuscripts shed new light on the real story behind the flying carpet of the Arabian Nights. The discovery of these...

MARTIN ELLJMENSON is a contributing editor of ARMY Magazine. He is the editor of The Patton Papers and the author of Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, 1885-1945. When George C. Scott, in an Army uniform. bedecked with medals, appeared in front of that enormous American flag at the opening of the movie “Patton he sent an immediate message to his audience. He wanted everyone to know that he was portraying a legend. In Scott’s depiction from the beginning’ of the film., Gen. George S. Patton Jr. was a man larger than life, a mythical giant in American folk lore,...

Jade Bear-Dragons Corroborate Yellow Emperor Legend For centuries Huangdi (the Yellow Emperor), legendary ruler and ancestor, lived only in the hearts and minds of the Chinese people and in the words of legends written down in antiquity. But in recent years, intriguing new clues have been emerging from the Neolithic Hongshan Culture. Over 5,000 years ago this was to be found in today's Liaoning Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Hongshan is world-famous for its many jade artifacts. Among these, it is the so-called bear-dragons unearthed in recent years that have provided the first hard archaeological evidence to add credence...

San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown is one of the most successful politicians in California history, a trailblazer for blacks in public office and a legendary master of the deal. Yet in an interview this week, Brown, 69, was unusually somber in assessing the sacrifices entailed by his very public career, which he is ending next week after 40 years in politics. "You can't be as successful as I've been and have a private life separate and distinct from your public life. They're all one and the same," he said in an interview at City Hall. Brown, known for his outgoing,...

Charlie Daniels is a great American Conservative, Christian, and Southern Gentleman.I just got back from the Charlie Daniels Band concert and my what a show!As the lights dimmed, the crowd of mostly faded blue-jeans and t-shirt clad Americans chanted, "Charlie, Charlie....." Charlie Daniels took the stage, fiddle in hand. His larger than life presence stood above the crowd: tall cowboy hat, silverly grey beard, and giant shiny belt buckle reflecting the stage lights. He leaned forward and struck that bow across the strings and the show got underway!After playing "Drinkin' My Baby Goodbye", Charlie stopped to thank everyone to...