Free Republic

Just a heads up to Freepers and fellow Americans. Major Japanese political monthly, now on the newsstands here in Tokyo, called "VOICE", published only in Japanese by PHP Publishing House, has a significant article breaking the news of the TRUTH of Barack Obama to the Japanese People, after months of uncritical adoration by nearly 100% of the Japanese Mass Media outlets.I hereby synopsize translate some points/subtitles of article, and provide a URL link to the Japanese site. If time permits a synop-translation may be provided on FRs. In the meantime, it is interesting to finally see these critical articles emerge...

SEATTLE -- Soccer dad Mike Miller prefers the smooth, cushioned surface of synthetic turf because his 13-year-old daughter can play year-round, including in the long rainy season that closes Seattle's grass fields. But as Caty Miller and her teammates dribble, pass and shoot, their cleats kick up tiny bits of ground-up tires that are used as filler between the blades of artificial grass. Those recycled tires have some health experts, activists and parents from Seattle to Chicago to Stamford, Mass. worried that children may be exposed to chemicals by inhaling or swallowing the rubber granules. Some are calling for a...

THE dread pirate of the high seas shuffled into the court room, standing all of 5-foot-2 and 90 pounds soaking wet. He looked more like an urchin seeking adoption by Madonna than a swashbuckling Somali pirate seeking an American fortune. Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, who laughed like a ninny when brought to New York on Monday in handcuffs, sat at the defendant's table, uncuffed. And he proceeded to dig his head into a bandaged hand, sobbing and sniffling like a little girl. SOMALI PIRATE CRIES IN COURT His shoulders trembled and he swatted at his dribbling nose, like a child facing...

  iowapresidentialwatch.com

(McClellanville) -- Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards says the 70 cents per hour increase in the minimum wage is not enough. The former North Carolina senator told reporters in McClellanville Wednesday he wants other presidential candidates to join him in calling for an increase in the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2012. Tuesday's increase boosted the minimum wage to $5.85 per hour. Edwards made a similar call Monday night in the Democratic presidential debate in Charleston. He says all he heard was bragging about Congressional action.

Do you think Isaiah Washington was treated unfairly?

FELLOW captive Faye Turney was instrumental in getting Arthur Batchelor through their terrifying 13-day kidnap ordeal, the 20-year-old said yesterday. Arthur said his brave colleague, nicknamed Topsy, risked beatings from their cynical guards for whispering reassurances to him as he sat scared stiff and blindfolded on a boat after they were snatched at sea. And he revealed that the hardest part of his nightmare in Tehran was when he was separated from mum-of-one Faye - who he said was like a big sister to him - and chucked into solitary confinement. Speaking of the day they were captured, able seaman...

Before Michael Buday married his fiancée, Diana Bijon, he decided to honor her family by bucking tradition and taking her last name. But, it wasn't so easy. Under California state law, he needed to pay more than $300, go to court, file a petition, and publicly advertise his name change for four weeks in a local newspaper. If he had simply gone along with tradition, it would have cost only $50 to $80. So Buday, 29, went to court, along with the ACLU, to change the law. They recently announced their plans to sue the California Department of Health Services,...

LEWISTON - School-age boys, whose classroom struggles have recently been the cause of much concern in education circles, are being hurt by an unwritten set of social rules that discourage them from showing their emotions, a Harvard psychologist told a group of teachers Friday. William Pollack, the author of "Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood," used a mix of anecdotes and statistics to argue that stereotypical images of manhood are detrimental to boys. "If a boy puts on a football helmet and cleats, then he's a real boy," said Pollack, co-director of the Center for Men...

We occasionally receive email from Donnie Dobro, a faithful reader with a down-home sense of humor. Donnie thought he heard a challenge from John F. Kerry and issued a response of his own, accepting it. We reprint below the two latest chapters in the leadup to a forthcoming duel I only hope will be televised. 1. 9/17/06 Challenged by John Kerry Greetings friends and fellow combatants. I have been challenged to a duel. To be specific, just a few days ago while referring to Swift Boat Sailors he stated: “I’m prepared to kick their ass from one end of America...

When all the fanatical Christians disappear, will traffic finally improve? Wait, did I miss it? Did it happen three days ago, on 6-6-06, a.k.a. Tea Time with the Beast, a.k.a. the Great Day of Reckoning, a.k.a. the National Day of Slayer, all the world crashing down in a heap of hissing steam and belching smoke and balmy gusty breezes sometime around noon just after lunch but not before rush hour and hitting right around siesta? I might have been napping. Did the Apocalypse finally hit? Did the deep wish of roughly a half-billion zealous believers come to pass and were...

No wait, not six. To hell with that. Make it 10. Ten bucks a gallon, no matter what the going rate for a barrel of light sweet crude. That would so completely, violently, brilliantly do it. Revolutionize the country. Firebomb our pungent stasis. Change everything. Don't you agree? Here's what we could do: Give gas discounts to cab drivers (at least initially) and metro transit systems and low-income folks, those who have to drive their busted-up '78 Honda Civics to their jobs scrubbing restaurant toilets and flipping burgers and vacuuming the residual cocaine from the seat cushions of numb SUV...

Think sex and drugs destroy America? Try naive chastity. Oh, and "Purity Balls" There are these things. These unholy events called "Purity Balls" and you should probably fall to your knees right this minute and thank a merciful and lubricious and happily polyamorous God that you do not know what they are and that you have access right this minute to vast quantities of wine to deflect their nasty karmic arrows because, you know, oh my God. But hey, free country. Purity Balls. No, not some sort of newfangled spherical chastity device to be inserted using vacuum tubes and pulleys,...

It's a shockingly eco-friendly plan from the world's most toxic retailer. Did hell just freeze over? Sometimes you just have to let the possibility breathe. Sometimes you just have to allow that something grand and good and healthy might actually be born from the bowels of the dank and ravenous megacorporate world, like flowers from a dung heap, like vodka from old potatoes, even if it comes right alongside the nastiest, most abusive federal environmental policy you will see in your lifetime. Take Wal-Mart, the most famously offensive, town-destroying, junk-purveying, labor-abusing, sweatshop-supporting, American-job-killing, soul-numbing, seizure-inducing, hope-curdling retailer in the known...

SAN FRANCISCO – A suburban San Diego teenager who was barred from wearing a T-shirt with anti-gay rhetoric to class lost a bid to have his high school's dress code suspended Thursday after a federal appeals court ruled the school could restrict what students wear to prevent disruptions. The ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals addressed only the narrow issue of whether the dress code should be unenforced pending the outcome of the student's lawsuit. A majority of judges said, however, that Tyler Chase Harper was unlikely to prevail on claims that the Poway Unified...

Two women in Orange County, Fla., fought off a suspected carjacker by tackling and then pinning the man to the ground on his stomach until deputies arrived, according to a Local 6 News report.

Ex-prostitute says he won't bow out of state House race DALLAS (AP) - A man running for state representative acknowledged that he once worked as a prostitute but said he's turned his life around and doesn't regret his past. Tom Malin, who has also sold Mary Kay cosmetics and now markets electricity, conceded that his illicit past could cost him the nomination in the March 7 Democratic primary. "I've made mistakes in my life, and I've stood before my creator and I've accepted responsibility for my behavior," Malin said in Friday's Dallas Morning News. On his campaign Web page, Malin...

NEW BEDFORD, Mass., Feb. 15 (UPI) -- One victim of the hatchet attack Feb. 1 at a Massachusetts gay bar said he was treated badly in the ambulance because he was gay. Robert Perry, himself a paramedic supervisor with Mercy-General Ambulance in Boston, said the New Bedford EMS ambulance personnel ignored his complaints, were rough with him and slammed an oxygen mask on his face where the gash was. Teenager Jacob D. Robida was eventually killed by police after swinging a hatchet in the bar Puzzles. Perry said he is filing a complaint with the Massachusetts Department of Health's Office...

It is still "very, very, very difficult" for homosexual US actors to be open about their sexuality, he said. "The film industry is very old fashioned in California," he said at the Berlin Film Festival, where he received a lifetime achievement award. The British star of The Lord of the Rings said Oscar-nominated cowboy love story Brokeback Mountain may open the door to more films about homosexuality. But the industry still had rigid ideas about leading men, he told reporters. "It is very, very, very difficult for an American actor who wants a film career to be open about his...

How to address a bitter, war-torn but still somehow giddy and deeply horny nation. My fellow Americans, we're not as royally screwed as everything Bush has done during his miserable term in office would have you believe.

I am a Gay Republican but I almost never chime in on political issues. I believe in small government, which the Bush administration has not been good at, as well as low taxes and the free market. I don't believe in manmade global warming and I think environmental activism is mostly a cover for people who want to make more rules to control our lives. Social issues don't get me very excited and I know I should be more grateful to my gay forefathers for all their sacrifices, but I've never encountered homophobia in my entire life so gay rights...

In many ways, the U.S. is now just as inhumane and brutal as any Third World regime. Oh well? "We do not torture." Remember it, write it in red crayon on the bathroom wall, tattoo it onto your acid tongue because those very words rang throughout the land like a bleak bell, like a low scream in the night, like a cheese grater rubbing against the teeth of common sense when Dubya mumbled them during a speech not long ago, and it was, at once, hilarious and nauseating and it took all the self-control in the world for everyone in...

The astonishing collapse of the Bumbling One surely means healthy change is imminent, right? Here's the good news: It really can't get much worse. We cannot afford any more wars. The environment has been sold to the bone. The national spirit has been beaten like an Alaskan baby seal and the GOP has worked our last nerve, passed through the karmic blood-brain barrier, reached saturation to the point where even moderate Repubs and gobs of intelligent Christians are finally saying, Oh my God, what have we done, and how did it all go so wrong, and how much Prozac and...

Yes, I know you were drunk. Must've been. Either drunk or on serious meds and/or you just didn't give much of a damn about anything anyway because you're just one of those people, one of those types who comes lurching around the city like a chunk of numbed pain in your big-ass mid-'80s burgundy car with the white top and chrome bumpers -- an old Cadillac? Monte Carlo? -- early last Sunday morning to wreak casual havoc. Is that about right? Do you remember any of it? Here is what I'm guessing: probably not. Let me tell you what happened,...

Now that we have a real Scotus nominee where are all the Miers supporters. Be consistant if you can.

Arkansas mom gives birth to a whole freakin' baseball team. How deeply should you cringe? Who are you to judge? Who are you to say that the more than slightly creepy 39-year-old woman from Arkansas who just gave birth to her 16th child yes that's right 16 kids and try not to cringe in phantom vaginal pain when you say it, who are you to say Michelle Duggar is not more than a little unhinged and sad and lost? And furthermore, who are you to suggest that her equally troubling husband -- whose name is, of course, Jim Bob...

Apparently, it wasn't just "invade Iraq and Afghanistan in my name." A special report: Scene: White House private residence, night, not long ago. President Bush present in his most favoritest guns 'n' bunnies PJs. Laura asleep, knocked out by a combination of too much Good Housekeeping and excessive hair-spray fumes. Suddenly, a burst of black smoke. A deep, resonant voice speaks: "Psst! George! God here, taking a break from supervising the well-being of eight billion troubled souls along with infinite galaxies of unimaginable vastness to speak with you directly one more time because, well, you're special, aren't you, George? Yes...

Leather, techno, sex & war: more only-in-SF juice to make you proud. Take that, uptight neocons. It was the moment when we walked by a jam-packed S.F. City Hall and realized it was open to host a VIP techno dance party, while immediately outside its gilded doors upward of 50,000 revelers wandered and shimmied and flaunted their costumes and drank nasty Red Bull cocktails in the huge Civic Center plaza for the third annual Love Parade, everyone baring flesh and shaking their groove thangs to any one of 200 world-class (well, some of them) DJs spinning their wares on over...

At last, one scientist BushCo will definitely -- albeit resentfully -- listen to. Sometimes. So now we know. This is what it takes. This is how far the nation has to crumble and this is how many people have to die and this is how many tens of billions it has to cost and this is how far his dirt-low poll numbers have to fall before Bush will finally come out and say he agrees with one of those godforsaken gul-dang book-learned scientist types. You know the ones. Those informed and well-educated data-crunchers he normally despises like a kid hates...

Can you hear that? That low scraping moan, that painful scream, that compressed hissing wail like the sound of an angry alligator caught in a vise? Why, it's the GOP, and they're screaming, "No, no it can't be, oh my God, please no, this damnable Katrina thing is just an unstoppable PR disaster for us!" After all (they wail), who woulda thought dissing all those poor black people and letting so many of them die in filth and misery in the Superdome while our pampered CEO president enjoyed yet another vacation would cause such an ugly backlash, such harsh criticism...

PROVO - There is a new coffee shop in town, but it's no Starbucks. The entry is framed with little white Christmas lights, there are half-a-dozen couches to go along with a few tables, and the walls are yellow, red, green and purple. Opposite a faux-brick wall there is a wall dedicated to nonsense. "Girls are like ladders," one customer wrote. Another scribbled: "I love yellow people." It's all the same to owner Christin Johnson. She's just happy the people who jotted down the messages wanted to stick around in her Vermillion Skies De-cafe and Lounge long enough to pen...

TWO MEN are being put on trial by the military this week because they answered their consciences. Pablo Paredes and Kevin Benderman refused to accept the lies they were told about the U.S. war on Iraq. Refused to accept the racist dehumanization of the Iraqi people. Refused to participate in the violence of the most lethal military machine in the history of the world. Refused to go to war for oil and empire in Iraq. Paredes, a third class petty officer, refused to board his Navy ship bound for the Persian Gulf, bringing 3,000 Marines to the battlefield--to kill and...

Feb 5, 2005 Guys in US are taking up knitting CHICAGO - ERIC Garcia and Matthew Kane are holed up in a classroom corner, chatting casually as they each knit a sock for a school project. They ponder the thought that their actions might be a little, well, unexpected. 'Girls can be truckers,' said 11-year-old Eric. 'Yeah, girls can be truckers,' echoed Matthew, who's also 11. 'So why can't guys be knitters?' A lot of guys are taking up knitting today, especially as the hobby surges in popularity on college campuses, in coffee shops and at the many yarn stores...

No Name Calling Week?     1/12/2005By Warren Throckmorton, Ph.D.Yes, name-calling is wrong. But this event’s sponsors reveal the agenda behind banning it. “There is a special place in hell for people like you!” These words were directed at me by a teacher during this past summer’s National Education Association (NEA) convention in Washington, D.C. This delegate to the NEA convention made his prediction in response to my presence at the NEA’s Ex-Gay Educators’ Caucus booth in the convention exhibit hall. His cheery salutation caught me off-guard given the message of tolerance and acceptance I had been hearing around the exhibit hall....

"MSNBC is close to signing a deal with CNN's Tucker Carlson, paving the way for the conservative Crossfire co-host to fill the 9:00pm primetime position soon to be vacated by Deborah Norville. MSNBC staffers have been buzzing about the possibility in recent days, three sources told TVNewser. One insider speculated that Carlson's program would attract new viewers to the network, but more importantly, "it shows that MSNBC is a priority and folks are trying their darndest to make it work." Carlson feels that CNN hasn't treated him well, a source said. MSNBC executives, on the other hand, are thrilled by...

Apparently Senator Edwards had a close brush with the truth some months back, though like the proverbial "broken clock" that shows the correct time twice each day, he didn't linger for long on the cusps of reality. According to Edwards, we live in a split society, which he described as the "two Americas." Edwards attempted to portray this nation as being divided between the "haves" and the "have nots," by which he delineated between those who are financially well-off, as opposed to others who struggle to make ends meet. However, another far more insidious divide exists across the nation, as...

bush's war in iraq and elsewhere in the world tells the world that the united states will use the "send them all to hell-let god sort them out" attitude towards terrorist. with iraq, bush can think, oops! maybe sadamm wasn't that much of a terrorist; but what the hell, better safe than sorry. the american reponse to threats has been one of using military muscle. it is almost a reflex reponse. this is why i think most americans will stand by bush in the reelection. bush is doing, acting, and responding to the world terrorists with an american style. as...

In Rush's closing segment he said that he just received a story or document saying that lawyers for both the Kerry and Edwards teams were sending out letters to TV stations warning them about showing the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth advertisement!

MIDI - RHINESTONE COWBOY As the terrorists are making plans...for more big hits on our land They have little fear of John F. "Flip-floppin' " Kerry They've been following this race close...they laugh 'cause he's so verbose They're supporting their guy There was a load of compromisin'...his and Fonda's stars were risin' Although he says he will be tough...they know it's a lie He's a rhinestone cowboy...with a cap pistol and a nice cute little girly horse He's a rhinestone cowboy...he is loved by Germans and Spaniards and French, of course He trashed soldiers without remorse His vote had...

[snip] The famously off-the-cuff Heinz Kerry is scheduled to address the delegates tonight. At the Kennedy Center, her husband violated the cardinal rule of politics — getting his picture taken in a ridiculous outfit. Visiting the space shuttle Discovery, Kerry donned dust-free overalls that made him resemble the sperm cells in Woody Allen's "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask)." Republican operatives issued a press release featuring the photo and its predecessor — the famous shot of 1988 Democratic nominee Mike Dukakis wearing an ill-fitting tank helmet. "It's the picture worth a thousand words,"...

Can somebody tell me how the aging hippie with the weak, ancient Black Power salute can get away with passing himself off as a member of the Hip Hop generation?

OMG!!!!!!!!! Was watching the ABC Morning news and caught a segment on Kerry, his "lighter" moments taken by personal camcorders.One shot was of him and Peter Yarrow(of Peter-Paul-Mary) singing "Puff The Magic Dragon". When the words got to puff--Kerry put his fingers to his lips like someone would to describe smoking a joint. But then he quickly stopped and waved off the move. Yes I did see it...that was better then a cup of java.

Kerry just 'threw' out the opening pitch at the Boston-Yankees game. Just saw Kerry pitch a really weak opening pitch, well short of the plate, bouncing under the catcher. What a poser!

Former California gubernatorial candidate Arianna Huffington is blasting the man who beat her last year, saying that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is "a bully" for calling Golden State Democrats "girlie men." "What we've seen in Arnold is an alternation of the seducer and the bully," Huffington told the New York Times. "Seduction worked for a while because he's a very charming man and the people were so relieved to be rid of [recalled Gov.] Gray Davis and have someone entertaining in his place." But Huffington warned, "When the seduction doesn't work anymore, the bully comes out. The expression 'girlie man' is...

Feb. 22, 2004... Kerry continues to say War on Terrorism is Police Action Democrat candidate John Kerry showed again today why America would not be safe under his presidential leadership. Appearing on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Kerry repeated his stance that the War on Terrorism is a police action: Stephanopoulous: But in the South Carolina debate, you did say that the war on terror was primarily an intelligence and law enforcement. Kerry: It is primarily, George. Primarily. Primarily means first. Secondarily means once you know who they are, and where they are, and what they're planning, you can...

Senator contracts to buy $3.8 million mansion By The Associated Press September 27, 2002   1:47 am The self-described "people's senator" from North Carolina is trading in his Washington mansion for an even bigger one in a better neighborhood.Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., and his wife have signed a contract on a $3.8 million home in Georgetown, Washington's historic neighborhood, according to The Charlotte Observer.Elizabeth Edwards said they decided to move because their old house had no yard where their two young children could play freely. They also have a contract to sell their present home near Embassy Row. It...

Washington DC--Representative Christopher Shays, who was knocking his knees over the prospect of celebrating on New Years Eve 2003 in Times Square, may switch parties on the first full business day of 2004."We're looking at a number of options. Since the President has taken terrorism head on and Congressman Shays is prepared to roll over and let the terrorists win, we think the Republican Party might be a bit too war-mongering," said Shays spokesperson Justin Case, "We don't believe the Democrat Party is appropriate, either, since they at least give lip service to protecting America." Comments from the Congressman himself...

ALBANY — The state’s highest court on Monday ended a case in which a New York Yankees’ clubhouse worker accused the team and some of its players of gay bashing and playing cruel practical jokes. The Court of Appeals declined to hear an appeal sought by Paul Priore, who sued the Yankees in state Supreme Court in the Bronx in 1998 for $50 million. Priore contended that after he began working for the team as an assistant equipment manager in 1996, several players made anti-gay remarks and played cruel pranks on him because of his sexual orientation. He also claimed...

Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, launched a stinging attack on President George Bush last night, denouncing him as the "greatest threat to life on this planet that we've most probably ever seen". His provocatively timed comments, on the eve of Mr Bush's arrival in London tonight, threaten to create severe embarrassment for the Prime Minister. They also come with talks under way on whether to readmit Mr Livingstone to the Labour Party before his five-year exile ends.Although he made his many differences with the Government on a range of issues clear, he reserved his strongest comments in an interview...