Free Republic

With temperatures dropping back below normal, lakes and ponds across Minnesota will be taking on new ice, some for the first time this season. But ice fishing, skating and snowmobiling will have to wait. "We're in limbo right now," said conservation officer Lloyd Steen of the Department of Natural Resources, who helped rescue a couple of canoeists marooned in their campsite by newly formed ice last week in Voyageurs National Park, on the Canadian border. "We've got anywhere from half an inch to 2 inches. It's starting to freeze pretty hard, but you can't do anything on it."

I hate George W. Bush. I'll say it again. I HATE GEORGE W. BUSH!! Yes, HATE. I think his policies rank him among the worst presidents in U.S. history. And, while I'm tempted to leave it at that, the truth is that I hate him for less substantive reasons, too. I hate the inequitable way he has come to his economic and political achievements and his utter lack of humility (disguised behind transparently false modesty) at having done so. His favorite answer to the question of nepotism--"I inherited half my father's friends and all his enemies"--conveys the laughable implication that...