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WASHINGTON – August means beaches and barbecues. And for some, a chance to rally the troops for this fall's health care showdown. Senate postponement of work on health care until September gives interest groups on both sides an entire month to whip up supporters, and pushes off crucial votes on the overhaul effort until fall — when people are likely to refocus on the issue. Backers and opponents of President Barack Obama's top domestic priority plan to use Congress' August recess for intensive advertising and grass-roots campaigns in hopes that energized voters might influence wavering lawmakers. Even so, some political...

Fight crazy talk with sanityBy Clarence Page Published: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 5:16 PM EDT What is it about President Obama that drives some people crazy? Take, for example, his former pastor. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is back in the news again. This time he’s apologizing. He really did not mean to blame “them Jews” in an earlier interview for keeping him away from the president, he says now. He had meant to refer to “Zionists” and not all Jews. The sound bite in question occurred a day earlier. In a walking interview with a reporter for Virginia’s Daily Press,...

It is now over 5 month since the best President of this century has left office . Do I miss the years he was our President and Commander in Chief.? You betcha. Today, I will post photos from June 2001 and June 2002. snugs will post photos from June 2003. (She might do it tomorrow though instead.. Enjoy your visit to Sanity Island

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (Reuters) – The U.S. Coast Guard will require U.S.-flagged ships sailing around the Horn of Africa to post guards and ship owners to submit anti-piracy security plans for approval, a Coast Guard official said on Tuesday. The new requirements, which respond to a surge of piracy off the coast of Somalia, allow ship owners to decide whether to use armed or unarmed guards, Coast Guard Rear Admiral James Watson told shipping industry representatives at a maritime security meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The revised Maritime Security Directive, highly anticipated by the shipping industry, was signed on Monday...

A couple's obsession with Star Wars inspired them to theme their wedding on the blockbuster films – with the groom playing Han Solo and the bride Princess Leia.Duncan Thomson, 41, and Sammi Gardiner, 39, got married in an unusual ceremony surrounded by friends and family all dressed as characters from the sci-fi movies. In a pun on the films' famous phrase, "may the force be with you", they chose Monday as the date for the service, so they could bill it as "May the 4th be with you". The couple, from the Isle of Wight, even invited the movie's director...

Italy is to scrap its blacklist of dangerous dogs, replacing it with a law making owners more responsible for their pet`s training and behaviour, Health Undersecretary Francesca Martini said Tuesday. The new law, which will come into effect in April, will wipe clean the current list of 17 breeds which are considered potentially dangerous, including Rottweilers, pit bull terriers, bull mastiffs and American bulldogs. Under the current law, owners of these breeds are required to keep them muzzled in public places and ensure that they pose no danger to others, while failure to respect the law can result in the...

SEAN HANNITY PLEADS GUILTY (ALL CHARGES LIKE RUSH) SIMULTANEOUSLY AS RUSH LIMBAUGH: FOLLOWS CODE OF THE BUSHIDO AND COMMITS HARI-KARI ON AIR (MAR 3, Tuesday, March 03, 2009 Sean Hannity pleads guilty, incontestable and does not challenge the charges against him any further; says “he had substantive charges” and also why the federal authorities will find his finances out of order “rich people always find a way to stash their fortune?” Or it could be a paper trail of corruption and influence or some criminal organization. Could also be Client 23 and various reasons why he knew Rush was in...

Japanese scientists have made a dramatic break with the UN and Western-backed hypothesis of climate change in a new report from its Energy Commission. Three of the five researchers disagree with the UN's IPCC view that recent warming is primarily the consequence of man-made industrial emissions of greenhouse gases. Remarkably, the subtle and nuanced language typical in such reports has been set aside. One of the five contributors compares computer climate modelling to ancient astrology. Others castigate the paucity of the US ground temperature data set used to support the hypothesis, and declare that the unambiguous warming trend from the...

Rising unemployment has touched off a race among state governors to woo companies with tax breaks and financial incentives, even as budget shortfalls force cuts in education, health care and other services.

The latest issue of The Journal of Communication and Religion (November 2008, Volume 31, Number 2) contains an excellent analysis of the importance of opposite-sex parent relationships. The common sense conclusion is backed up with social science data and affirmed by a peer-reviewed scholarly article: girls need a dad, and boys need a mom. Not surprisingly, the study also found that communication is an essential building block for all family relationships — family interactions are the crucible for attitudes, values, priorities, and worldviews. Beyond the shaping and modeling of these essential personal characteristics, the family shapes an individual’s interpersonal system...

The Security Cabinet on Wednesday rejected a French proposal for a 48-hour suspension of the IDF offensive against Hamas to allow Paris the opportunity to mediate a cease-fire, but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that the proposal would be reconsidered when the time is right. "We didn't initiate the Gaza operation in order to end it while Israeli towns are still under fire, as they were before the operation." said Olmert. "Imagine if after a few days of the offensive we had declared a unilateral cease-fire and a rocket barrage had then hit Ashkelon" he continued. "Israel has shown restraint...

Can't take it anymore.

Dennis Kucinich is currently on the floor of the House presenting his bill to impeach President George W. Bush. C-SPAN, 8:00 PM 9 Jun 2008.

Good morning, and welcome to Super Duper Tuesday Week...It's also the culmination of Mardi Gras, and oh yes, there was a big football game of some sort yesterday...Hollywood Writer's strike is expected to end this week...

PING!

By Jeff Franks NEW ORLEANS, April 6 (Reuters) - Natural changes in ocean currents are to blame for increased Atlantic hurricane activity in recent years, not man-made global warming as many scientists believe, hurricane forecaster William Gray said on Friday. "I think the whole human-induced greenhouse gas thing is a red herring," Gray said in a speech at the National Hurricane Conference. Gray, whose annual forecasts for the hurricane season are closely watched, said the Earth has warmed the past 30 years, but that it was due to flucuations in ocean currents. He predicted a cooling off period would begin...

When Eric the Red led the Norwegian Vikings to Greenland in the late 900s, it was an ice-free farm country--grass for sheep and cattle, open water for fishing, a livable climate--so good a colony that by 1100 there were 3,000 people living there. Then came the Ice Age. By 1400, average temperatures had declined by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, the glaciers had crushed southward across the farmlands and harbors, and the Vikings did not survive. Such global temperature fluctuations are not surprising, for looking back in history we see a regular pattern of warming and cooling. From 200 B.C. to A.D....

Czech president Vaclav Klaus has criticized the UN panel on global warming, claiming that it was a political authority without any scientific basis. In an interview with "Hospodárské noviny", a Czech economics daily, Klaus answered a few questions: Q: IPCC has released its report and you say that the global warming is a false myth. How did you get this idea, Mr President?• A: It's not my idea. Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a...

Prepared Remarks of Mr. David Burton Americans for Fair Taxation My name is David Burton. I am a partner in the Argus Group, a small public policy firm based in Virginia. I have a particular interest in, and awareness of, the problems of small businesses for a number of reasons. I worked for many years in my family’s furniture and pool table manufacturing business stopping only once I was well into law school. I worked as the CFO and general counsel of a small 80 employee multinational manufacturing company. I also regard small businesses and farmers as the greatest source...

It was a case that prompted the president judge of Commonwealth Court to upbraid some judges for ignoring the constitution in the name of stopping drunk driving. At issue: If a police officer outside his jurisdiction stops a vehicle and the driver refuses to take an alcohol breath t est, can the license of the driver be suspended for a year? The answer is no, according to a ruling this week by the state Supreme Court. Police have grounds to make arrests outside of their jurisdiction when they see a "felony, misdemeanor, breach of peace or any other act which...

So after last night's resounding defeat in the Connecticut primary of what's left of common sense in the Democratic Party, it is time to replace the old with the new: OLD LOGO: NEW LOGO:

Let me speak to you about dumbness because that is what schools teach best. Old-fashioned dumbness used to be simple ignorance: you didn't know something, but there were ways to find out if you wanted to. Government-controlled schooling didn't eliminate dumbness - in fact, we now know that people read more fluently before we had forced schooling - but dumbness was transformed. Now dumb people aren't just ignorant; they're the victims of the non-thought of secondhand ideas. Dumb people are now well-informed about the opinions of Time magazine and CBS, The New York Times and the President; their job is...

Liberal House Republicans are taking an increasingly tough stance on immigration reform and are more determined than ever to delete the portions of the Senate bill that grant citizenship rights to more than 10 million illegal aliens. "I don't want to see a bill come to the floor of the House that gives them a path to citizenship," said Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, one of the most liberal Republicans in Congress.This is a change from three weeks ago, before Mr. Shays attended 18 community meetings in his district, where the questions invariably turned to immigration. At the first meeting,...

WASHINGTON - One of the most prominent House Republicans on military issues said Thursday he would try to scuttle a Dubai-based company's effort to manage U.S. ports as lawmakers' complaints about the Bush administration's handling of the issue continued to spread. "Dubai cannot be trusted," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and normally one of the administration's most trusted allies. He called the United Arab Emirates "a bazaar for terrorist nations" and asserted that the United States should not permit DP World to take over significant operations at six U.S. ports. "I intend to...

The disciplinary arm of the N.C. State Bar dropped charges of felonious misconduct against two former Union County prosecutors Friday because of a 1999 clerical error at the state Supreme Court. The State Bar had charged Kenneth Honeycutt and Scott Brewer with lying, cheating and withholding evidence in a 1996 death penalty case. The ruling Friday marks the second time that Honeycutt and Brewer won on procedural grounds before the bar's Disciplinary Hearing Commission, which sits as judge and jury in disciplinary cases. . . . Prosecutors around the state are concerned that the case is damaging their reputation and...

The N.C. State Bar has challenged the dismissal of disciplinary charges against two former Union County prosecutors, saying they committed felonies to win a death penalty conviction. Kenneth Honeycutt and Scott Brewer were charged with lying, cheating and withholding evidence in the 1996 murder trial. Honeycutt, the former district attorney in Union County, has since returned to private practice; Brewer is now a District Court judge in Richmond County. Last week, the bar's Disciplinary Hearing Commission cited a missed deadline in dismissing the case against them. But the bar's lawyers say there is no deadline to bring charges because the...

On the way to work today, the southbound traffic in Columbus Ohio was held up for miles. Untold fuel was expended and an indeterminable number of persons were late for work, appointments, and other committments. Many minutes later we inched our way past the cause of the delay- two vehicles sitting motionless in the roadway.You might assume that terrible loss of life had occurred, or the vehicles were wrecked beyond movement. You'd be wrong. The drivers of the 2 vehicles had engaged in a minor fender-bender, and were waiting for the police to arrive unsolicited, so that they could plead...

This is a shamless vanity that somehow feel compelled to write. No I am not all weepy because I am PMSing....or because I am all girly and soft. I just finished reading 7 or 8 of the various after reports on the various freeping of the Sheehan and Code Pink(O) events and I felt all warm and mushy inside.

AS SENIOR officers and civil rights groups continued to argue about the controversial new stop-and-search policy, based on racial profiling, police put it into practice yesterday at stations across London. Officers working to the guidelines, confirmed on Sunday by Ian Johnston, Chief Constable of the British Transport Police, targeted men of Asian appearance aged 18 to 30. Mr Johnston, who was supported yesterday by Hazel Blears, the Home Office Minister, said that police should not waste time searching “old white ladies”. “Intelligence-led stop and searches has got to be the way,” he said. “We should not bottle out over this...

Once again, Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo is speaking for the majority of sane Americans. And once again, liberals, terrorist sympathizers (is there an echo in here?), and cowards across the country want him rebuked and repudiated. Democrats, some Muslim groups, and the partisan media are boo-hooing over comments Tancredo made regarding the war on terror. Specifically, they’re upset over his response to a question by radio interviewer Pat Campbell—who asked Tancredo what the appropriate response would be to a nuclear terror threat against America. Tancredo said the following: “What if you said something like, ‘If this happens in the United...

For 5 months 'I stayed in the box' As a Marine Corps officer, I spent five years and five months in a prisoner of war camp in North Vietnam. I believe this gives me a benchmark against which to measure the treatment which Sen. Richard Durbin, Illinois Democrat, complained of at the Camp of Detention for Islamo-fascists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Near the end of Ressie Mangum's bitter divorce, police officers showed up at her door with commitment papers and an order to take her to a mental facility for evaluation. "They grabbed my arms and pulled me onto the porch," the San Antonio-area woman testified Monday. "I didn't know what was happening." After she arrived at the mental health facility, she was placed in a room behind locked doors and examined by a psychiatrist to determine if she was a threat to herself or others, according to testimony. After about four hours, doctors determined she was sane and released her....

Why This Libertarian Is Voting to Re-elect George W. Bush By J. Neil Schulman "If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for ... but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong." -- Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long I've called myself a libertarian since January 10, 1971, when my mother, a diehard New York Sunday Times crossword-doer, said to me, "Hey your favorite author's picture is in the...

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!

Ward Nineteen I lay here on my bunk in Ward Nineteen, thousands of miles away from Ward Six where Chekov’s Doctor what’s-his-name, spent the last of his days. Sometimes as I lay here, I wonder about him. I just lay here in the dark, and think because that is all they allow me to do. Actually they try their damnedest to keep me from doing that, with all of the drugs that make me float on pastel colored clouds most of the day. Everywhere I turn, there are images of all the liberal icons of history. Morons, and traitors. Once...

A GROUP of former US intelligence officials has written to President Bush claiming that the US Congress and the American public were misled about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction before the war. The group’s members, most of them former CIA analysts, say that they have close contacts with senior officials working inside the US intelligence agencies, who have told them that intelligence was “cooked” to persuade Congress to authorise the war. The manipulation of intelligence has, they say, produced “a policy and intelligence fiasco of monumental proportions”. They write in the letter to Mr Bush: “While there have been occasions...

We are not Sodom and GomorrahDate Friday, February 14 Clinton's out of the White House - Sanity returns Some resorts throwing cold water on spring breakusatoday Jayne Clark For more than a decade, Cancun, Mexico, has been party central for the boozed, be-thonged and besotted boys and girls of spring break. But this year, the drink-till-you-drop college crowd will find less-indulgent hosts. A majority of the Caribbean resort's hotels, bars and clubs that cater to the student trade have signed a ''civility agreement'' to enforce laws that in past years often were ignored, officials say. Among them are bans...

The governor who says he "kept the lights on" raises doubts about those in his own head. "After three years in office and an easy primary win, Gov. Gray Davis faces a strange problem: More California voters than ever actively dislike him," reports the Los Angeles Times. Can anyone blame them? Davis is doing an awfully good impression of Al Gore these days. Consider Davis's recent oddball interview with the editorial board of the San Diego Union-Tribune. Before the board, the nerdy braggart fumed about California's energy crisis last year: "If I didn't panic, you wouldn't be able to put...