Free Republic

As al-Qaeda in Iraq’s fortunes wane, it has no one but itself to blame. President Bush’s troop surge indisputably has crushed al-Qaeda and other terrorists, while Iraqi soldiers have honed their ability to hammer deadly insurgents. But much of al-Qaeda’s damage has been self-inflicted. Largely overlooked is the Islamo-puritanism that it inflicted on the Iraqi territories it seized. Rank-and-file Iraqis tasted life under bin Laden-style Islam, and they gagged. They responded by collaborating with American and Coalition forces to expel these mad zealots from their midst. At one level, al-Qaeda’s religious decrees have been nearly comical. As the Institute for...

The fastest eco boat on the planet will attempt to break the round the world speed record using fuel made from human fat. Pete Bethune, the New Zealand skipper of Earthrace, said the attempt to circumnavigate the globe would begin from Valencia in Spain on March 1 next year. Bethune and his wife mortgaged their house and sold everything they own to help make the project happen, while continuing to seek support from sponsors. Demonstrating further commitment to the cause, Bethune underwent liposuction and donated enough to produce 100ml of biofuel, while two other, larger volunteers also had the procedure,...

Inventors have created a soap infused with caffeine which helps users wake up in the morning. The soap, called Shower Shock, supplies the caffeine equivalent of two cups of coffee per wash with the stimulant absorbed naturally through the skin, manufacturers say. "Tired of waking up and having to wait for your morning (coffee) to brew?" ask the makers, thinkgeek.com. Scented with peppermint oil, each bar is designed to provide a stimulant boost within five minutes.

The communist, pro-terrorist group International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) seems to realize they are facing a hot LZ on March 17. ANSWER has made significant changes in their plans since their initial announcement that they would hold their ‘antiwar’ rally at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Last week they changed the location of their rally from Constitution Gardens (East side of the Vietnam Memorial) to a park one block west of Memorial on Henry Bacon Drive. Yesterday, ANSWER announced they are only going to use the Henry Bacon Drive park as a meeting point for their...

Tori Kovach of Aberdeen, left, is a regular feature on downtown streets, often seen near the Wishkah Bridge holding signs protesting the war in Iraq or chastising President Bush. On Wednesday, Sgt. Brendan Chamburs, the Marine Corps recruiter stationed in Aberdeen, saw Kovach holding a protest sign near Quizno’s and decided to stage a counter-demonstration. He had his sign made at Coast Line Signs. Kovach was unmoved, saying, “I believe in the military, but I think the military is being misused. They are dying for a lie.” A few people honked their horns as they drove by, but not everyone...

Tests show that Nazis used human remains to make soap Warsaw, Poland 06 October 2006 04:41 The Nazis used human fat to make soap during World War II in a Nazi German medical academy located in what is now the Polish Baltic sea port city of Gdansk, Polish war crimes prosecutors confirmed on Friday, pointing to new laboratory tests. Officials with Poland's Institute for National Remembrance (IPN) based their findings on a laboratory analysis of a piece of soap found in 1945 in the medical academy in Gdansk run by Nazi German Professor Rudolf Spanner. A new laboratory analysis of...

Mon 4 Sep 2006 Malodour on the dancefloor NIGHTSPOTS are being forced to pump out perfume because the new smoking ban is failing to disguise body odours. Air fresheners and scented oils are being deployed in a bid to banish smells caused by sweaty revellers. Licensed trade chiefs say venues are turning some people away because of poor hygiene, which was covered up before by the smell of cigarette smoke. Kay Bennett, of Edinburgh city centre nightclub Cabaret Voltaire, said: "If you walk into a club with a few hundred people dancing, you notice a smell. It's a combination of...

Two live rattlesnakes were released in an Arizona theater during a showing of the new film, 'Snakes on a Plane.' The snakes were released after the film began rolling in the dark theater at the AMC Desert Ridge multi-plex at Tatum and the 101 in north Phoenix.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered government and cultural bodies to use modified Persian words to replace foreign words that have crept into the language, such as "pizzas" which will now be known as "elastic loaves," state media reported Saturday. The presidential decree, issued earlier this week, orders all governmental agencies, newspapers and publications to use words deemed more appropriate by the official language watchdog, the Farhangestan Zaban e Farsi, or Persian Academy, the Irna official news agency reported. The academy has introduced more than 2,000 words as alternatives for some of the foreign words that have...

CARACAS (AFP) - Anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan, mother of a US soldier killed in Iraq, joined more than 10,000 anti-globalization activists in Caracas, where she hailed Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez. "I admire him for his resolve against my government and its meddling," said Sheehan, who gained notoriety when she camped outside US President George W. Bush's ranch last year to protest the Iraq war. She said she hoped to meet Chavez later in the week.

Daniel Burns, one of the "St. Patrick's Four" war protesters, was sentenced in federal court Monday (January 23). Burns, 44, was sentenced to six months in jail, fined $250 and ordered to pay part of the $958 of damages caused by the protest. He was sentenced by Judge Thomas J. McAvoy in Binghamton Federal Court four months after being found guilty of two misdemeanor crimes. Burns, along with fellow Ithacans Peter DeMott and Clare and Teresa Grady, entered a Lansing military recruiting station on St. Patrick's Day 2003 and poured vials of their blood on posters, an American flag and...

U.S. antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan will open the World Social Forum in Caracas on Tuesday together with other political and cultural leaders from diverse nations with a mass action, organizers for the event said Sunday. Sheehan, mother of a dead soldier in Iraq who achieved notoriety from heading various antiwar actions against the government of George W. Bush, will give a speech at a march that will kick off the World Social Forum en the Venezuelan capital, said dará Edgardo Lander, a member of the organizing committee of the event. In the action for which the activist will assist, "she...

WASHINGTON - It seems hard to go wrong with a hand soap that "kills 99 percent of germs" it encounters. But critics of anti-bacterial soaps in the home say there's plenty to be concerned about. ADVERTISEMENT A government advisory panel will take a look at that Thursday. The popularity of soaps and other products claiming anti-bacterial properties skyrocketed in the last decade as consumers turned to them as a defense against household illnesses. But some people contend that a number of the products, particularly those that use synthetic chemicals rather than alcohol or bleach, pose the risk of creating germs...

Here is the detailed lists of protests from the moonbats...... --------------------------------------------------------- WASHINGTON, DC 11 AM at Lafayette Park near the White House dc@worldcantwait.org RESIST OR DIE! NO SCHOOL NOV 2! Organize your campus. Get in touch: youth_students@worldcantwait.org LOCAL EVENTS ARIZONA TUCSON: 12 PM, Intersection of Church and Congress (downtown, by the Convention Center) twcwtucson@hotmail.com CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY: Berkeley@worldcantwait.org LOS ANGELES: 12 PM, Actions along Wilshire Blvd from Downtown to Santa Monica; 5:00 PM, rally at the Westwood Federal Building (Wilshire & Westwood Blvds.) worldcantwait_la@yahoo.com, 213-926-5717 SACRAMENTO: 5 PM, Cesar Chavez Park (Downtown) carofkings@hotmail.com SAN DIEGO: sandiego@worldcantwait.org, 619-868-0819 SAN...

BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazilians are illegally entering the United States in record numbers in hopes of finding jobs and better lives -- just like characters in a wildly popular Brazilian soap opera "America." The number of undocumented Brazilians caught on U.S. soil is set to rise over four fold this year from 2004 -- a much bigger increase than for illegal immigrants from other Latin American countries, according to U.S. officials. As authorities search for factors spurring the exodus, they have begun to look at the passion of Brazil's poor for "America," a soap opera that debuted in early...

Summer of Dove Are the women in the company’s new ad campaign too big to sell beauty products, or have our minds gotten too small? Newsweek Updated: 3:13 p.m. ET Aug. 3, 2005 Aug. 3 - Even if you haven’t seen Dove’s "Campaign for Real Beauty," you’ve probably heard about it. The ads promote a new line of skin-firming creams and feature six "regular" women of varying sizes and ethnicities cheerfully posing in plain white underwear. The curvy nonmodel models were introduced by Dove in June, but newspapers across the country are still simmering with dueling diatribes about Dove's selection...

Handwashing with soap curbs diseases Friday 15 July 2005, 6:53 Makka Time, 3:53 GMT Children can be most at risk of contracting diseases Related: Nasa seeking cause of malfunction Internet television to offer wide choice Comet debris fine like talcum powder Mouth bacteria linked to oral cancer Tools: Email Article Print Article Send Your Feedback Poor countries can make headway against two killer diseases by the simple, low-cost method of encouraging citizens to wash their hands with soap, says a new report. Pneumonia and diarrhoea, both caused by bacteria, are the two biggest causes of childhood deaths in the world,...

NEWS ADVISORY U.S. Newswire / Medialink Worldwide 6/27/2005 10:15:00 AM Contact: Adam Eidinger, 202-744-2671 or adam@mintwood.com WASHINGTON, June 27 /U.S. Newswire/ -- For the first time since the federal government outlawed hemp farming in the United States, a federal bill has been introduced that would remove restrictions on the cultivation of non-psychoactive Industrial Hemp. At a Capitol Hill lunch on June 23 to mark the introduction of H.R. 3037, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2005, about 100 congressional staff feasted on Bahama Hempnut Crusted Wild Salmon and Fuji Fennel Hempseed Salad. The five course gourmet hemp meal was prepared...

N.C. study: Germs can't fight soap, water Researchers test hand-washing methods The Associated Press Posted on Sat, Mar. 12, 2005 CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Mom was right. A new study by infection-control specialists at UNC Hospitals confirms that the best way to get germs off your hands is with plain old soap and water. The researchers tested 14 hand-hygiene agents plus tap water against specific bacteria and viruses applied to the hands of 62 adult volunteers. Soap and water, or microbial soap and water, proved the most effective at removing viruses and bacteria. "Based on these findings, I'd put my...

In true punk rock fashion, Green Day tested the censors at the Grammy Awards on Sunday _ and the censors were ready. The Bay Area rockers, on a career high with their "American Idiot" album, added a shot of rock 'n' roll adrenaline by performing the title cut. The disc won the Grammy for best rock album. The song includes a prominent obscenity in one of the lyrics, but the censors were plainly prepared and neatly excised the word. They couldn't delete, however, singer Billie Joe Armstrong's pointed political reference to not wanting to be part of a redneck agenda....

MOSCOW, January 31 (Itar-Tass) - Soaring rates of allergic diseases across the globe have paradoxically stimulated the exports of Russian laundry soap, says Olga Meshcheryakova, the vice-president of Russia’s Butter and Fat Union. She told Itar-Tass Monday that according to the statistics of State Customs Committee the exports of laundry soap from this country had trebled in the past three years to reach 40,000 tons. “There’s nothing surprising about it,” Meshcheryakova said. “Laundry soap has high biological activity and good emulsifying and dissolving capacity and it’s equally efficacious for washing clothes, one’s own hands, dishes, window glass, floors, and painted...

The following letters are taken from an actual incident between a London hotel and one of its guests last year. The hotel ended up submitting theletters to the Sunday Times. Dear Maid, Please do not leave any more of those little bars of soap in my bathroomsince I have brought my own bath-sized Imperial Leather. Please remove the six unopened little bars from the shelf under the medicinechest and another three in the shower soap dish. They are in my way. Thank you,S. Berman -------------------------------------------------------------Dear Room 635, I am not your regular maid. She will be back tomorrow, Thursday, from herday off.  I took the 3 hotel soaps out...

Jeffrey Lee Parson, the Hopkins teenager who unleashed an Internet worm that infected an estimated 48,000 computers and caused more than $1 million in damage, should be sentenced to 37 months in prison, according to a formal recommendation made by federal prosecutors Tuesday. Parson's sentencing is scheduled for Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle. Parson, 19, who was arrested during his senior year at Hopkins High School, pleaded guilty in August to releasing the widely publicized Internet virus. "Parson's worm was not an aberrant moment in a young person's life, but instead was just the latest in a string...

c By DOUGLAS JEHL ASHINGTON, Dec. 28 - The head of the Central Intelligence Agency's analytical branch is being forced to step down, former intelligence officials say, opening a major new chapter in a shakeup under Porter J. Goss, the agency's chief. The official, Jami Miscik, the agency's deputy director for intelligence, told her subordinates on Tuesday afternoon of her plan to step down on Feb. 4. A former intelligence official said that Ms. Miscik was told before Christmas that Mr. Goss wanted to make a change and that "the decision to depart was not hers." Ms. Miscik has headed...

A sassy classic Ralphie, the lamp, the BB gun and why we love them Every year at this time we get to unwrap a gift package filled with red cabbage, BBs and fishnet stockings. It's the movie "A Christmas Story," arguably America's favorite holiday film. The 90-minute picture celebrates its 21st anniversary this year, happily planted in the middle of our pop traditions. In 2003, more than 38.4 million viewers tuned into the 24-hour "A Christmas Story" TV marathon, said the film's director, Bob Clark, by phone as he sat next to a special lamp in his Los Angeles office....

HANOI, Oct 7 (AFP) - French President Jacques Chirac warned Thursday of a "catastrophe" for global diversity if the United States' cultural hegemony goes unchallenged. Speaking at a French cultural centre in Hanoi ahead of Friday's opening of a summit of European and Asian leaders, Chirac said France was right to stand up for cultural and linguistic diversity. The outspoken French president warned that the world's different cultures could be "choked" by US values. This, he said, would lead to a "general world sub-culture" based around the English language, which would be "a real ecological catastrophe". Citing Hollywood's stranglehold over...

CNN is reporting that Lance Armstrong may be stripped of his 6th Tour de France title. In a random check for banned substances, 3 were found in Armstrong's hotel room. The 3 substances banned by the French that were found in his hotel room were as follows: (1) Toothpaste (2) Deodorant (3) Soap The French officials also found several other items which they had never seen before including a testicle and a backbone...

Japanese marriages falling victim to 'Yongfluenza' This year is likely to be remembered for the boom set off by "Winter Sonata," the weepy South Korean melodrama broadcast by NHK. The "Fuyu-Sona" series not only achieved a high audience rating during its initial showing; it also generated spinoffs in the form of 330,000 DVDs and 1.22 million copies of the story in book form — generating an estimated 3.5 billion yen in revenues for the network. "My wife spent over 30,000 yen on a set of DVDs," a 50-year-old trading firm employee grumbles. "To watch them, I had to buy a...

Seize the good stuff. A couple of months ago, a friend bought me a bottle of pink champagne to celebrate a job I'd landed and we talked about popping it open on the spot. But we'd gotten together for an early pizza dinner on a school night and it would have wrecked us for the rest of the evening and how could we manage laundry, bills, and loose ends — all the things we'd squeeze in later after the kids were in bed. Now my friend is undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer and we can't share the wine. No alcohol...

The age-old remedy for a foul mouth makes a comeback following John "F" Kerry's recent remarks. Candidate-tested, mother-approved! ; )

Guards stand watch as Nigerian inmates play Japan Nigeria's Super Eagles may well have gone home early from the World Cup but a group of former countrymen are keeping the dream alive in the Far East. The Nigerian inmates at Thailand's notorious Klong Prem prison beat Japan 5-1 as the "Bangkok Hilton" kicked off its own World Cup. "We've been training once a day for a month. It's great. It relieves the stress of prison life," said 35-year old Prince Juvenal, a Nigerian doing time for drugs trafficking at Thailand's notorious prison. I feel like a representative, I have...