Free Republic

Lebanese aid 'only reaching political supporters' By Rania Abouzeid in Taibe (Filed: 13/09/2006) Hizbollah and its allies have been accused of favouring their supporters in the distribution of aid in southern Lebanon. The radical Muslim movement, whose conflict with Israel saw Lebanese homes and infrastructure bear the brunt of the destruction, holds sway throughout most of the south. But in many places it shares power on local municipal councils with its allies and Shia co-religionists in the Amal Movement, as well as the Communists. Hizbollah has a long-held reputation among locals for honesty. But the movement is now attracting complaints...

'I thought only of escape. I felt like a poor chicken in a hen house' By Kate Connolly in Berlin (Filed: 07/09/2006) Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian teenager who was held in captivity beneath a garage for eight years, said yesterday she had thought "only of escape" during her imprisonment and dreamed of cutting off her kidnapper's head with an axe. Austrians watch the TV interview on a big screen in a café in Vienna Speaking to the media for the first time since her ordeal ended with her escape two weeks' ago, Miss Kampusch appeared self-confident, witty, articulate and strong-willed....

AUSTIN – Jim Fuller, Libertarian candidate for Texas House District 38, has died. Fuller was vacationing at his stepson’s house in Kalamazoo, Mich., when he did not wake up the morning of Aug. 12, said Floyd Murray, his stepson. The cause of death was ruled congestive hear t failure. Fuller’s death leaves only Eddie Lucio III on the November ballot for the open seat that includes most of Harlingen and northern Brownsville. Lucio III, considered to be the frontrunner, has wide family influence and was the only candidate raising money. The Republican candidate, Brownsville businessman Luis Cavazos, withdrew from the...

Only drugs and vaccines will deflect bird flu pandemic 18:00 26 April 2006 NewScientist.com news service Debora MacKenzie In just 16 weeks, the pandemic near-saturates the US (Image: Neil Ferguson) The picture is just as bleak for the UK (Image: Neil Ferguson)One of the world’s most powerful pandemic models has reached a stark conclusion: only combining a pre-pandemic vaccine with larger stocks of antiviral drugs than currently planned would really prevent mass disease. Closing borders and restricting travel will do very little.The conclusions mirror those reached earlier this month by a separate group working with a different model in the...

'Only a fraction of Teheran's brutality has come to light' By Kim Willsher in Auvers-sur-Oise (Filed: 19/03/2006) She is the female figurehead of what she hopes will become a new Iranian revolution. Now, after almost 25 years in exile, the world is beginning to beat a path to her door. Maryam Rajavi wants those who visit her near Paris to know what sort of regime Iran's mullahs are running. As the leader of the largest exiled Iranian opposition group, she talks angrily of the 15-year-old boy flogged to death for eating during Ramadan, and the girl of 13 buried up...

Brouhaha ContextBy John Hammer Despite what Americans have been led to believe by the mainstream media, the protests about the Danish cartoons are about as spontaneous as the canned laughter on an old network sitcom. Imagine for a moment that you are so outraged by the riots in Pakistan that you and 10,000 of your closest friends and family decide to protest. So you go to your flag locker and pull out your Pakistani flag to burn. What? You don’t have a flag locker with flags of every nation in the world? Wow, if one is to believe the tripe...

NEW CASTLE AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, Del., Feb. 17, 2006 – News of the grievous wounds recently suffered by two ABC television journalists covering the war in Iraq drew my attention for a special reason. Master Sgt. Thomas E. Hastings, 166th Medical Group radiology technologist, Delaware Air National Guard, performs an abdominal ultrasound to check for internal bleeding on a soldier at Balad Air Base, Iraq, in the fall of 2005. Courtesy photo   They were rushed to the Air Force Theater Hospital at Balad Air Base, north of Baghdad. They couldn't have been taken to a better battlefield hospital....

'Only a matter of time before terrorists use weapons of mass destruction' By Con Coughlin (Filed: 17/01/2006) Biological weapons pose a far more serious long-term terrorist threat to the West than nuclear weapons, according to Washington's leading counter-terrorism expert. And Henry "Hank" Crumpton, the newly-appointed head of counter-terrorism at the US State Department, believes that it is simply a matter of time before international terrorist groups such as al-Qa'eda acquire weapons of mass destruction and use them in attacks. Henry Crumpton refuses to rule out the military option to tame Iran's nuclear amitions In an exclusive interview with The Daily...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20, 2005 – American servicemembers are doing a superb job in Iraq, and the only place the war can be lost is in the United States, where people don't have a clear understanding of what's happening on the ground and can lose patience, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said Dec. 19. "The work that they're doing overseas is so professional and so able, and we're so fortunate to have them there that I would have to say that the only place this could be lost is if we lost our will here in the United States," Rumsfeld...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 9, 2005 – Enemies of a free Iraq recognize they can't win against the United States and the coalition on the battlefield, and the only way they can hope to win is in Washington, D.C., and through American public opinion, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Dec. 8. "They can't win over there," Rumsfeld said on PBS' "News Hour With Jim Lehrer." "The only place they can win it is in Washington, D.C., and they know that. They are working on it, and they are working it skillfully." In addition, the secretary said, "they lie" and use the...

Only 40 genes separate your pet dog from a wolf By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 22/11/2005) The difference between an obedient, friendly dog and a big bad wolf could be down to as few as 40 genes, according to a study into tameness. The research also found that to adapt to a life on the farm or in the home takes many more changes in gene activity than that required to love humans. A Swedish team compared two groups of farm-raised silver foxes in Siberia, one where for 40 generations the foxes have been selected for their friendly nature,...

There is but one reason to pretend to be Republican, and that reason is to believe in rule by the law, as defined by Our Constitution. If you can't handle this, you are just another shade of democrat!

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Sept. 21, 2005 – Rich Owens takes great pride in his role as the "owner/commander" of Kulis Air National Guard Base's "Ice Cream Support Squadron" here. Owens bought Tastee Freez ice cream shop and restaurant on Aug. 1, 1994, near the base, which is home to the Alaska Air National Guard's 176th Wing. He didn't know anyone from Kulis then, but 16 days later that would change. Three of his friends were in a Cessna 172 that crashed near Anchorage. "The 210th Rescue Squadron, which is part of Kulis ... happened to be at a training mission right...

Why Did They Look Into It?Friday, August 05, 2005 By Brit Hume Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine: The New York Times has been asking lawyers who specialize in adoption cases for advice on how to get into the sealed court records on Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' two adopted children. There is no indication The Times had any evidence there was anything improper in the family's adoption of five-year-old Josie and four-year-old Jack, both born in Latin America. Sources familiar with the matter told FOX News that at least one lawyer turned the Times down flat, saying...

SACRAMENTO -- It may be that moderate Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger offers the last hope to save California's state government from the ideologues in the Legislature who are running it into a ditch. If so, that hope appears to be slipping away. As his approval ratings tumble in the polls, Schwarzenegger backs away from one reform after another that he has proposed to solve the state's dire fiscal problems. Three of them have survived to appear on the Nov. 8 special election ballot. But the two that might do the most repair work -- reform of the budget process and redrawing...

Whites-only group looking to recruit members (Update, Spring Lake, May 24, 2005, 11:50 a.m.) It's a new group looking to recruit new members, and it has just one requirement. You have to be white. The group goes by the name White Voices of America, a whites-only group calling for fair and equal treatment of white people in West Michigan. The group has been busy passing out flyers in Spring Lake, Ferrysburg, and Grand Haven. Joel Toppen is with the Lakeshore Ethnic Diversity Alliance. Several people in the tri-cities area have expressed concern to the police about the group's activity. Members...

The modest brick house, with its yard full of wilting tulips and rusted old cars, isn't a candidate for the pages of Better Homes and Gardens. But on a spring day in 2002, it was just what Nealie Pitts had in mind. She approached the owner, Rufus T. Matthews, and asked the price. According to court documents, Matthews said the house was selling for $83,000 - but that a deed restriction meant only whites were eligible to buy it. "I was hurt and angry, like he had slapped me in the face," Pitts, who is black, said in an e-mail....

Members of the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) Black Caucus have become seemingly desensitized to racial slurs. The Caucus did not even blink when the extreme Left’s new champion, Howard Dean, made prejudiced statements right before their very eyes. From Dean’s comments, it seems he believes that a Black person’s place is to be cleaning toilets at a hotel in which whites stay. According to the Washington Times, On Feb. 11, the day before he was elected party chief, Mr. Dean asked, at a meeting of the DNC Black Caucus, "You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people...

Natan Sharansky is among the world's most consistent advocates of democratization as a basis for foreign policy. Born in Ukraine in 1948, he received a degree in mathematics from Moscow's Physical Technical Institute. A brilliant mathematician and chess master, he entered the limelight as a spokesman for the movement to emancipate Soviet Jewry. Arrested by the Soviet authorities in 1977 for his refusenik activities, he was sentenced to thirteen years imprisonment. President Ronald Reagan interceded and, in 1986, won Sharansky's release as part of an East-West prisoner exchange. In his 1988 autobiography Fear No Evil,[1] he discussed both his emotional...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!