Free Republic

June 11, 2008, 6:00 a.m. Obama’s Unofficial Slogan: ‘No, You’re Wrong.’Whatever happened to his ‘pang of shame’? By Jim Geraghty As Barack Obama’s campaign becomes defined by a series of embarrassments — his assessment of what small-town residents cling to, a mentor who believes the government created HIV, a friend of 20 years who takes to the pulpit and demands whites give up 401(k) accounts to atone for their ancestor’s racist sins, a wife who pledges to take away some people’s pie and give it to others, an associate who expresses no regret over planting a bomb in a...

<p>Americans are to blame for some illegal immigrants becoming serial crooks because "they're picking up those bad habits of cheating, of drinking and drugs," according to an official of a prominent Latino advocacy organization.</p> <p>Jesse Diaz of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) made the claim on Monday during an interview on Dallas talk radio station KRLD, and then repeated them on Tuesday to WFAA-TV.</p>

Dell laptop explodes at Japanese conference INQ reader's amazing snaps By INQUIRER newsdesk: Wednesday 21 June 2006, 13:22 AN INQUIRER READER attending a conference in Japan was sat just feet away from a laptop computer that suddenly exploded into flames, in what could have been a deadly accident. Gaston, our astonished reader reports: "The d*** [edit mine] thing was on fire and produced several explosions for more than five minutes". Should you witness such an event, his advice is, "Don't try anything courageous/stupid, stay away, away, away!" "For the record, this is a Dell machine," notes Gaston. "It is only...

CNN reports Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) will hold a press conference today at 3 p.m. in Washington, D.C. to discuss his recent traffic incident on Capitol Hill.

TRENTON A repairman fixing a heating duct under a house discovered a clothed human skeleton and police on Saturday said they still were trying to figure out the person’s identity. “It looked like the guy crawled up in there,” said police spokesman Peter Page. “I don’t know if he was a homeless person or a previous tenant or what.” The body was discovered Friday by handyman Richard Woods in a crawl space under the kitchen of the house. “I’ve never seen anything like that before and I don’t want to again,” Woods said. “I got out of there as fast...

MIAMI (AP) — A jury has ordered Ford Motor Co. to pay more than $61 million to the family of a 17-year-old boy killed in a roll-over accident when his friend fell asleep while driving an Explorer.Ford was liable in the accident because it sold a vehicle with poor handling and stability, the jury said Tuesday.The company planned to appeal, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.The family of Lance Crossman Hall claimed Ford knew the Explorer was prone to roll-overs and failed to warn consumers about the vehicle's defects.Ford blamed defective Firestone tires for the Explorer's handling and stability problems, and the...

PLANET-DISSOLVING DUST CLOUD IS HEADED TOWARD EARTH!Monday September 12, 2005 By MIKE FOSTER CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Scared-stiff astronomers have detected a mysterious mass they've dubbed a "chaos cloud" that dissolves everything in its path, including comets, asteroids, planets and entire stars -- and it's headed directly toward Earth! Discovered April 6 by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the swirling, 10 million-mile- wide cosmic dust cloud has been likened to an "acid nebula" and is hurtling toward us at close to the speed of light -- making its estimated time of arrival 9:15 a.m. EDT on June 1, 2014. "The good news...

What the heck is wrong with the news media and the audience that laps this stuff up? We have become voyeurs...

For the past 20 years, there's been a discussion in political circles and the media about the "fault lines" in the Republican party over the hot-button social issues such as the death penalty, abortion, affirmative action and gay rights. The presumption has always been that these issues would ultimately cause a rift between conservatives and moderates that would split the Republican coalition. The pundits and the MSM have been expecting and predicting this split for as long as I've been watching politics and they've been puzzled by the fact that it has never occurred. I believe that the reason that...

d

WASHINGTON - Curtis Sathre said it was like a bomb going off. His 13-year-old son Michael stood stunned, ears ringing, hand gushing blood after his cell phone exploded. Safety officials have received 83 reports of cell phones exploding or catching fire in the past two years, usually because of bad batteries or chargers. Burns to the face, neck, leg and hip are among the dozens of injury reports the Consumer Product Safety Commission (news - web sites) has received. The agency is providing tips for cell phone users to avoid such accidents and has stepped up oversight of the wireless...

Girl says bones belong to ghost Investigators unsure how possible human remains got inside insulation BY MELANIE BENNETT Staff Writer A Russell County fifth-grader is convinced bones found in her home last weekend belong to a mysterious friend who told her about being chopped up years ago. Investigators have few clues about how and when the bones got inside insulation under the living room floor of the mobile home on Jowers Road, near East Alabama Motor Speedway. The 10-year-old, Stephanie Ogden, and her family have lived in the home since 1998. Her great-grandparents, John and Marion Stewart, own the home....

A FAMILY in Mandava high-density suburb in Zvishavane deserted its home after stones rained from the roof, literally. Police in Zvishavane confirmed the incident, which took place on Thursday night at the Swift Cottages. “It appears to be an issue involving witchcraft,” said the Acting Officer Commanding Zvishavane District, Superintendent Raphael Mathe. “A report was made but we have sent officials to investigate the issue further because there was a letter which implicated some neighbours in matters of witchcraft,” said Supt Mathe. Neighbours said the drama started on Thursday evening when a family, who rented a house in the Swift...

PENSACOLA, Florida (AP) -- A Florida man who tried to shoot seven puppies was shot himself when one of the dogs put its paw on the revolver's trigger. Jerry Allen Bradford, 37, was charged with felony animal cruelty, the Escambia County Sheriff's Office said Wednesday. He was being treated at a hospital for a gunshot wound to his wrist. Bradford said he decided to shoot the 3-month-old shepherd-mix dogs in the head because he couldn't find them a home, according to the sheriff's office. On Monday, Bradford was holding two puppies -- one in his arms and another in his...

failure!

Airplane's Toilet Ice Crashes Garden Party GRAZ, Austria (AP) - It was an inelegant intruder on a sunny afternoon: a chunk of ice from a jetliner toilet that broke free and slammed into an Austrian family's garden. No one was injured when the ice tumbled from the sky Sunday afternoon in Graz...the fragment bore deep into the soil in the garden, where the unidentified family was enjoying a lazy summer afternoon...police said the 6-inch ice ball almost certainly came from an airliner toilet, judging from its blue color and its odor. They did not elaborate. 09/06/04 21:50

Giuseppe Cannella had a big surprise for his mother-in-law when he put a jet engine on the back of her wheelchair. Mr Cannella says the chair can now do top speeds of more than 60mph and has proved the star of a model plane championship during the Bank Holiday. A model plane enthusiast himself, Mr Cannella has been putting on shows at Barkston Heath near Grantham, Lincs. "It is just the wheelchair with the engine bolted on the back and steering on the front," he said. Holiday surprise "Originally it was a gimmick. I had a jet engine and I...

IN a bizarre incident, a Bulawayo man allegedly developed a female genital organ on the right side of his face stretching up to the chest in what is suspected to be a case of witchcraft.The man was the talk of the Egodini commuter omnibus terminus in the city on Monday where many people who spotted him as he was boarding a omnibus to Magwegwe West suburb on Sunday could not believe what they had seen.The man was yesterday admitted at Mpilo Central Hospital where doctors said he had a "cancerous tumor", the Chronicle newspaper reported.The hospital superintendent, Dr Lindiwe Mlilo...

India's railway minister has come up with a novel excuse for the appalling safety record of the world's largest railway network - he blames it on Vishwakarma, the Hindu god of machines. Passengers travel on a crowded train in Calcutta "Indian Railways are the responsibility of Lord Vishwakarma," said Laloo Prasad Yadav. "So is the safety of passengers. It is his duty [to ensure safety], not mine." India's 67,000-mile rail network, on which 1.4 million people are employed, suffers from decades of chronic under-investment. Accidents - on average there are 300 every year - are a permanent hazard for the...

Drunken 'Stripper' Sparks Probe Mon May 17,11:55 AM ET LONDON (Reuters) - A drunken woman looking for a place to sleep slipped past security and onto an aircraft at Aberdeen airport in Scotland where she dozed unnoticed for several hours, sparking a review of security. The British Airports Authority (BAA) said Monday it had launched a full investigation after the woman -- reported by a newspaper to be a scantily clad stripper -- scaled a fence and boarded a private jet. "The young woman was found aboard an aircraft last Thursday and an investigation is under way," a BAA spokesman...

Husband burns house so wife won't get itBy J. Eric Eckard, Rocky Mount Telegram A Nashville man going through a divorce burned his home to the ground Wednesday in an effort to thwart his wife from receiving any property, Nash County authorities said. "He said that his wife had left him, and he didn't want her to have everything that he had worked so hard for," a Nash County Sheriff's Department spokesman said. The incident occurred early Wednesday morning, and included an armed stand-off with deputies. The man's name was not released because no crime was committed, the spokesman said....

<p>Three men who went streaking through a Denny's restaurant were chilled and chagrined when they spotted a thief drive off in their getaway car, their clothes inside.</p> <p>Naked in the 20-degree weather, the three young men huddled behind cars in a parking lot until police arrived.</p>

Attitude Problem? Family: Soldier Accused in Grenade Attack Troubled Over Race & Religion Issues March 25 — U.S. Army Sgt. Asan Akbar, the soldier being detained in connection with a grenade attack on his fellow soldiers, told his family members that he encountered racism as an African-American and a Muslim in the armed services. His stepfather, William Bilal, who was once married to Akbar's mother, Quran Bilal, said that his stepson was resentful toward the military and had complained several years ago that it was difficult for a black man "to make rank" in the military. "Asan was pushed to...

Opine away : )