Free Republic

Under the Terrible Tyranny of Pity“Verily, I like them not, the merciful ones, whose bliss is in their pity . . .”“And what in the world hath caused more suffering than the follies of the pitiful?” --Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883) If you wish to make a man like you, it is said you should ask a favor of him rather than do a favor for him. If you ask a favor that is within his power, he will like you for asking because you thereby honor his power. This is why a man likes his wife a little...

YouTube; Hotel California. Parody and Social Message You just have to watch. . . it’s why I’m in Utah now.

President Trump.... wants to significantly cut the tax agency’s funding at a time when it has already been bleeding staff and struggling to keep up with a flood of returns ahead of Tax Day.... ...“This is an agency that has had every last drop squeezed out of it,” said Dennis J. Ventry Jr., a member of the I.R.S. advisory council and a law professor at the University of California, Davis. “I don’t know how it’s going to sustain itself.”.... ....The White House budget office has proposed a 14.1 percent cut to the I.R.S. for the fiscal year that begins in...

With the partial shutdown of the federal government dragging on, first lady Michelle Obama has canceled a fundraising trip to California that was scheduled for this weekend, Democratic Party officials said Tuesday. Obama was supposed to have visited Los Angeles on Friday and then headed to the Bay Area .. ... Democratic insiders said there was queasiness at the prospect of the first lady raising millions from wealthy donors and campaigning for Democratic causes while thousands of federal employees are furloughed because of the partial government shutdown. Because the events were political fundraisers and not public appearances, most of Obama's...

His job makes him a target for daily abuse, but this ticket-issuing parking inspector has helped ease the animosity of drivers. In a random act of kindness captured by a Reddit user, Canadian parking official Jim Walton took pity on a motorist who left a desperate note on their car after being locked out on Tuesday. Random act of kindness: Ottawa parking inspector Jim Walton let this motorist off the hook after reading their sob story As shown in a photo of two notes taken byRedditor SpaceMonkey9001, Ottawa parking officer Jim Walton chose not to fine the motorist after reading...

Geez, Mark Davis, get a job. You were booted off of WBAP for a reason. You suck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How did ‘I hate bin Laden and I’m glad he’s dead’ become the most shocking thing one can say in polite society? This week we have shuttled from an atmosphere of congratulation, even muted celebration, over the killing of OBL to what Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and High Priest of the Chattering Classes, describes as a ‘very uncomfortable feeling’ about the killing of OBL. Those who dare to celebrate his death – mainly young American jocks – have been denounced as ‘abhorrent’ and ‘sickening’, and now the main way you advertise your decency, your membership of the civilised, upstanding,...

I almost feel sorry for Obama these last few days, as he's undergoing a Howard-Dean-like implosion.

Pity the fool!

AP Middle-Class Job Losses Batter Workforce Sunday January 1, 8:53 pm ET By Kathy Barks Hoffman, Associated Press Writer Middle-Class Job Losses Batter Workforce As Companies Slash Payrolls, Send Jobs Overseas LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- Thirty years ago, Dan Fairbanks looked at the jobs he could get with his college degree and what he could make working the line at General Motors Corp., and decided the GM job looked better. He still thinks he made the right choice. But with GM planning to end production of the Chevrolet SSR and shut down the Lansing Craft Centre where he works sometime...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Debbie Shifter faces the daunting task of whipping up Thanksgiving dinner for 18 in the tiny kitchen of her FEMA trailer. Shifter, who lives in Bay St. Louis, Miss., had to drive 45 minutes to find a Wal-Mart that survived Hurricane Katrina. Downsizing the ingredients to fit her compact oven, she will serve a 13-pound turkey instead of the usual 20-pounder. Because of a lack of counter space, she will do the chopping and dicing on two wooden TV trays in her living room. Guests will eat outside at a plastic table on her lawn, or...

One major difference between Protestants and Catholics is that Catholics pray for the dead. As Cardinal Ratzinger said so well, "My view is that if Purgatory did not exist, we should have to invent it." Why? "Because few things are as immediate, as human and as widespread - at all times and in all cultures - as prayer for one's own departed dear ones." Calvin, the Protestant reformer of Geneva, had a woman whipped because she was discovered praying at the grave of her son and hence was guilty, according to Calvin, of "superstition." "In theory, the Reformation refuses...