Free Republic

WASHINGTON - Defeating the insurgents in Fallujah is critical in the battle for a free Iraq (news - web sites) because "one part of the country cannot remain under the rule of assassins," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday. "These are killers. They chop people's heads off," he told a Pentagon (news - web sites) news conference hours after American and U.S.-trained Iraqi troops launched an assault on Fallujah. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said victory in Fallujah would not end the insurgency or eliminate the need for more fierce combat in...

<p>Except for the presidential election, the most important election this year will take place on April 27 in Pennsylvania. No, it's not the "American Idol" finals. It's even more important than that. That's the day of the Republican primary pitting a great Republican, Pat Toomey, against the 74-year-old, Ira Einhorn-defending alleged "Republican," Arlen Specter.</p>

THE government was drawn into a diplomatic row with the United States and Italy last night, after a senior British ambassador described President George Bush as "the best recruiting sergeant for al-Qaeda". Sir Ivor Roberts, the British ambassador in Rome, made the extraordinary comment during a weekend meeting of politicians and journalists. His remarks were designed to be off-the-record but they proved so explosive that Italy's leading newspaper, Corriere della Sera, decided to breach the rule and publish them. Corriere reported Sir Ivor as saying: "George W Bush is the best recruiting sergeant for al-Qaeda. If there is anyone ready...

Welcome to my lies There’s no turning back Even while you watch You will find us Acting on our best behaviour Turn our backs on other saviors John Forbes Kerry wants to rule the world It’s my own big joke It’s my own regret Help me to decide How to beat George Bush With libel and some slander I will try to win November John Forbes Kerry wants to rule the world There’s a world where the right won’t find you Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down When they do I’ll have left already So glad you’ve almost...

July 30, 2004 NYT Headline: Kerry Pledges to "Restore trust and credibility" to the presidency. Exactly who is he talking to? The Republican’s obviously trust Bush a lot. The terrorists know that a threat of force from Bush is credible. And, most of the undecided electorate – too busy to pay attention right now -- have to admit that you can trust Bush to do what he says. So, Kerry’s argument is not enough to get a purchase on the consciousness of the American people. The only people who don’t trust President Bush are the cynical partisans of the Democratic...

France Goes Vichy On Its Jews By Andrew L. Jaffee, June 3, 2004 Home   Search   Forum   Terms France, birthplace of Marcel Proust and Jean Jacques Rousseau, producer of great wines and cheeses, and now home to some of the worst anti-Semitism in the free world. Synagogues have been burned down. Jewish schools have been torched. Hundreds of attacks against Jews have occurred, perpetrated mainly by French citizens of North African origin (Arab Muslims). As of yet, the French government and most citizens have done little to stop this wave of anti-Semitism, most likely as a result of political correctness, realpolitik, anti-Israel sentiments,...

A UC Berkeley journalism lecturer’s 32-year-old photograph of future Democratic U.S. Senator and presidential candidate John Kerry has wound up in a forgery that suckered the New York Times. Ken Light, head of the photojournalism program at UCB’s Graduate School of Journalism, has found himself in the eye of a media and Internet storm after a clever forger inserted an image of Jane Fonda alongside his image of Kerry and posted the composite on the Internet. For Light, the fake was doubly ironic. “I teach the photographic component of the law and ethics class, where I show the students numerous...

Nations Exempt from U.S. Fingerprinting Rule Citizens from 27 countries can travel to the United States without a visa and are exempt from being fingerprinted and photographed at US airports and seaports under a new anti-terrorism programme the Homeland Security Department launched today. Those foreigners can enter the United States with passports for business or pleasure for up to 90 days. To travel for other purposes or to stay longer, they must have a visa and would be subject to the checks for other arriving foreigners under the new US-VISIT program. The countries are: Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brunei, Denmark,...

COLLEYVILLE, Texas - (KRT) - No gingerbread house should have to endure a carrot-stick fence or a door made of celery. It's just not the way gingerbread houses are done. The kindergartners at O.C. Taylor Elementary School therefore had a sticky problem Friday. New state guidelines prohibit distibution of certain yummy snacks, jelly bean Christmas lights among them, by schools. ``Contraband candies,'' O.C. Taylor teacher Debbie Horn calls them. But for as long as anyone can remember - possibly as far back as when gum drops were gum drips - the school's kindergartners have made gingerbread houses. So teachers issued...

Janice Rule, an actress in film and onstage who became a psychoanalyst late in her career, died on Friday at her home in Manhattan. She was 72. Born in Norwood, Ohio, Ms. Rule studied ballet and began dancing in Chicago nightclubs in her teens. She soon attracted attention in Hollywood and made her film debut in 1951 in "Goodbye, My Fancy," with Joan Crawford and Robert Young. She was pictured on the cover of Life magazine on Jan. 8, 1951, as a rising young actress. Her films in the 1950's included "Starlift," "Holiday for Sinners," "A Woman's Devotion" and "Bell,...

After years of political fighting, the Legislature gave final approval Wednesday to fiercely debated legislation promising marriage-like rights to gay couples and allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses. Gov. Gray Davis has vowed to sign both bills, AB 205 and SB 60, which targeted two of the state's most contentious social issues and sharply divided lawmakers along party lines, with most Democrats supporting the proposals and most Republicans opposed.

Republican leaders are seeking a quick federal review of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst's decision to drop a state Senate tradition that killed congressional redistricting once before and could again if reinstated. Democrats on Tuesday accused Republicans of secretly trying to get the U.S. Justice Department to approve the rule change. Democrats contend that the change in Senate procedure hurts minority voting rights; Republicans deny that. "They probably believe the Justice Department will rubber-stamp anything that those partners in crime, (U.S. Majority Leader) Tom DeLay and David Dewhurst, submit," said Gerry Hebert, a lawyer for Texas congressional Dem- ocrats. The request,...

TAMPA - The wait may be over soon for beer-parched Buccaneers fans and thirsty passengers at Tampa International Airport who have found the tap sealed shut on Sunday mornings. Tampa City Council members Rose Ferlita and Sean Harrison raised the prospect Thursday of revising the city's blue laws, which regulate the sale of alcohol on Sunday. They wanted to discuss letting the taps flow at 11 a.m., not the current 1 p.m. They had the enthusiastic backing of airport officials, who pushed for even more latitude for the sale of alcohol at TIA bars. The airport wants to be able...

<p>BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. security concerns have clashed with Iraq's traditional culture in a potentially volatile flap over American men frisking Iraqi women.</p> <p>The practice is not widespread, and the Americans say they use it only as a last resort. But tales of such incidents -- and television footage of a male American soldier patting down a chador-clad Iraqi woman -- have sparked outrage in Iraq (search).</p>

<p>The filibusters Democrats have against two of President Bush's judicial nominees are "unfair to the nominees, unfair to the president and unfair to the majority of senators who stand ready to confirm them," Mr. Frist, Tennessee Republican, said on the Senate floor.</p>

Friday, 10 January, 2003, 18:32 GMTPakistan anger at US immigrant rule Thousands rushed to comply with Friday's deadline Pakistan has urged Washington to reconsider a new regulation requiring Pakistanis in the US to register with authorities. Foreign Minister Khursheed Mahmood Kasuri told US Secretary of State Colin Powell in a telephone call the measures were causing ''a lot of despondency and concern'' among Pakistanis. He said Pakistanis should be given special treatment because their country was a key ally in the war on terror. Mr Kasuri is due to visit the United States next month. Deportation threat Mr Powell reportedly...

If I wanted to rule the world, where would I begin? Foremost, I would want to control the money supply, for if I could control the money supply, then I would control whole governments, whole populations, and whole economies. I would not want to own them, mind you, for that would give me a bad name, but to control them still.Let’s say that four hundred years ago a clever man earned a fortune in financing merchant ships and wholesaling imports. He made so much money that the King came to him and asked him to finance a war. This,...

The Avalon Project at Yale Law School The Code of Hammurabi Translated by L. W. King When Anu the Sublime, King of the Anunaki, and Bel, the lord of Heaven and earth, who decreed the fate of the land, assigned to Marduk, the over-ruling son of Ea, God of righteousness, dominion over earthly man, and made him great among the Igigi, they called Babylon by his illustrious name, made it great on earth, and founded an everlasting kingdom in it, whose foundations are laid so solidly as those of heaven and earth; then Anu and Bel called by name me,...

A pet cat has become playmate and protector to a mouse in Thailand. The unlikely friendship has sprung up between Auan, a seven-year-old female cat, and Jeena. Auan's owners say she found Jeena three years ago when the mouse was a baby. She now licks him clean and keeps dogs at bay. The pair live on a farm in the central province of Phichit, 281 miles north of Bangkok.

BLY, Ore. — This hard-knocks hamlet seems an unlikely place to search for clues to the al-Qaida terrorist network. It sits on an arid plateau in Southern Oregon, about 50 miles east of Klamath Falls. With a population of about 250, it has a couple of cafes and small stores, an antique shop, and the razed foundation of an abandoned lumber mill. But in late 1999, federal authorities and other sources say, the area had something far more unusual: militant Muslims scouting a ranch outside of town as a possible training camp for jihad fighters. That aborted effort has now...