Free Republic

There is a Christmas tree inside town hall in Cary, North Carolina, but town officials couldn’t bring themselves to call it by its proper name, so they relabeled it the “Community Tree.” They used to have a “Holiday Tree” in Madison, Wisconsin, but even that was deemed too improper this year, so they opted for “The State Capitol Tree.” American Atheists threw a party decorating what they called their “Solstice Tree.” Vineland, New Jersey opted to call their Christmas parade the “Holiday parade,” maintaining that because Urban Enterprise Zone dollars are used to fund the parade, they can’t call it...

One landed on Omaha Beach just past dawn on D-Day, June 6, 1944. The other survived a German POW camp. Neither claims to be a hero — which is precisely why we honor these two Tucsonans as Veterans Day approaches. "Yes, I was scared. You had to be. But I credit our training for getting me through," says Bob Kirby, 88. A corporal with the 81st Chemical Mortar Battalion, Kirby waded in chest-deep water onto Omaha Beach 50 minutes past the first landings. "Bodies were floating all around, and bullets were pinging in the water. I don't know why we...

Strong winds have always blown across this vast grassy plain. Perhaps the area's topography has something to do with it, but the direction of the wind remains constant, irrespective of the time or season: From east to west, from the horizon where the sun rises to the horizon where the sun sets. Swept by the unceasing winds, the misshapen trunks and branches of shrubs all incline to the west. Tall grasses do not grow here, and the grasses that do grow all lie flat on the ground, bending westward. Caravans and herding folk traverse the single road that crosses the...

Police in Massachusetts said a 31-year-old pregnant woman was miraculously unharmed after accidentally backing her car off the fourth story of a parking garage. Springfield Police Lt. Rupert Daniel said the woman, who was alone in her car at the time, accidentally put her Hyundai Sonata in reverse and drove off the fourth story of the downtown garage, plunging 40 feet to the sidewalk below, WWLP-TV, Springfield, reported Tuesday. The woman was treated for minor injuries at Baystate Medical Center and released.

The headlines and videos conservatives should digg for the day are up - as well as a couple bury suggestions. http://diggsandburies.blogspot.com/

Barack Obama and the media: The marathon make-out session between President Barack Obama and the mainstream media will continue – in Bill Clinton’s former hotel room, better known as the Oval Office. Obama will shrug off any responsibilities that Clinton’s “third term” appointees can’t contend with, and everyone will be expected to understand that it’s still all George W. Bush’s fault. At the end of the year, Obama will emerge as the president who aged the least during his first year in office. Israel and Palestine (featuring Hillary Clinton): It would appear that the world’s most boring and predictable soap...

Researchers are cloaking materials from light, sound, and even matter itself. Two years ago a team of engineers amazed the world (Harry Potter fans in particular) by developing the technology needed to make an invisibility cloak. Now researchers are creating laboratory-engineered wonder materials that can conceal objects from almost anything that travels as a wave. That includes light and sound and—at the subatomic level—matter itself. And lest you think that cloaking applies only to the intangible world, 2008 even brought a plan for using cloaking techniques to protect shorelines from giant incoming waves. Engineer Xiang Zhang, whose University of California...

This is actually a pretty good list if you visit the link. Spitzer, Palin, Blago, Obama. 2008 was certainly one of the weirdest years politically. Who would have predicted the fall of Hillary and at the hands of Obama who is so much more to the left than even Hillary.

Michael Savage has a new book out called “Psychological Nudity”. This is a catchy title for his gathering of stories about his life. They bare glimpses of what makes him tick. Since Savage will probably not be getting a good review from the “New York Times“, (which he calls the “Old York Times”), this book deserves one, so here it is. Other newspapers will also not be reviewing his book favorably. Maybe this is why they are sinking like a rock in their readership numbers. People recognize quality and truth when they see it. In this book of eclectic stories...

OMAHA, Neb., July 30, 2008 – As competitors were hurrying from one competition to the next at the 28th National Disabled Veterans Wheelchair Games, some paused between venues to commit to history their accounts of their military service and the impact it’s had on their lives. Steve Hollingshead, an audiovisual specialist for the Department of Veterans Affairs, puts a microphone on retired Army Lt. Col. Jim Howe, before conducting an interview for the Veterans History Project. Defense Dept. photo by Donna Miles  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Tucked quietly away from the brightly lit competitions, Steve Hollingshead from...

http://www.realamericanstories.com/ People describe what it means for them to be an American.

Pig humor with a moral, the moral is, a pig is a pig and beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

Melancholy Serenades by: Malcolm A. Kline, June 11, 2008 Education professionals think that they have come up with a way to get middle school students to share their life experiences in a way that is both therapeutic and instructive but the exercises they have concocted may prove to be intrusive at best. “In their writer’s notebook, students draw a horizontal line across the page,” Karen D. Wood writes in the May 2008 issue of Middle School Journal. “Above the line, they note the highlights of their lives; moments that are fond memories.” “Below the line, they note the lowlights of...

Pig humor with a moral, the moral is, a pig is a pig and beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

It was a simple commercial, with Mike Huckabee posed in front of a set of scandalously empty white bookshelves that, when framed just right beside a Christmas tree, formed a glowing cross behind the candidate. And, lo, the former Southern Baptist pastor told the voters: "Are you about worn out by all the television commercials you've been seeing, mostly about politics? I don't blame you. At this time of year, sometimes it's nice to pull aside from all of that and just remember that what really matters is a celebration of the birth of Christ and being with our family...

NEW YORK - A magazine gets a hot story straight from a soldier in Iraq and publishes his writing, complete with gory details, under a pseudonym. The stories are chilling: An Iraqi boy befriends American troops and later has his tongue cut out by insurgents. Soldiers mock a disfigured woman sitting near them in a dining hall. As a diversion, soldiers run over dogs with armored personnel carriers. Compelling stuff, and, according to the Army, not true. Three articles by the soldier have run since January in The New Republic, a liberal magazine with a small circulation owned by Canadian...

Digg.com reveals news stories fade after 1 hour 16:18 24 April 2007 NewScientist.com news service Belle Dumé Online news articles can lose their appeal in as little as an hour. That is the message from two statistical physicists who analysed the way people access information on the user-driven news site Digg.com. Fang Wu and Bernardo Huberman of HP Labs in Palo Alto, California, US, studied Digg in an effort to understand the way online news readers consume stories. Through a statistical analysis of the site, the researchers discovered that just a handful of stories hog most people's attention and most...

WASHINGTON, April 12, 2007 – It was supposed to be a routine security patrol in Mosul, Iraq, the Saturday before Thanksgiving, 2005. Army Pfc. Stephen Sanford and his fellow soldiers of the Company C, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, from Fort Wainwright, Alaska, planned to arrest suspected insurgents, take them back to the detention center and “relax, stretch out a bit.” Instead, squad members would find themselves in an intense firefight. “There was just this massive explosion,” Sanford said. “You could see flashes and automatic weapons fire. It was sensory overload. It was incredibly loud. You could smell the...

Gun ban groups often claim that private citizens rarely, if ever, use guns in self-defense. ABC News’ "20/20" is now putting that claim to the test, asking viewers to submit their own real-life "Armed Citizen" stories. ABC’s website asks: Have you ever defended yourself from a crime in your home, in your business, or in public by using a gun? Perhaps you warded off a potential attacker by simply showing a gun? If you’ve personally used a gun in a legitimate act of self-protection against a criminal attacker, we encourage you to tell your story to ABC News. To tell...

10 most underreported stories of 2006 WND readers, editors compile annual 'Operation Spike' list -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: January 3, 2007 The controversial movement to merge the U.S., Mexico and Canada into what critics call a "North American Union" – in the face of what is already a massive, national illegal immigration and border security crisis – tops the list of the 10 most "spiked" or underreported stories of the last year, according to an annual WND survey. At the end of each year, news organizations typically present their retrospective replays of what they consider to have been the top news stories...

Col. Hunt filling in for Howie today. Happy...Howie-Days! Read below for Howie's latest column...can I get me a huntin' license here?

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., Oct. 5, 2006 – At each stop during a visit here yesterday, people asked Marine Gen. Peter Pace what stories are not getting out to the American people about the war on terror. In response, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff listed the three most significant stories from the war on terror that are not getting coverage. Pace said one of the most significant aspects of the war not getting coverage is the enormous number of women going to school in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The Taliban in Afghanistan forbade women from attending school. Now, almost...

ATLANTA (Army News Service, July 12, 2006) – Producers from The History Channel’s “Mail Call,” a one-hour weekly show highlighting military history and events, arrived to an enthusiastic reception at Third Army’s Digital Video and Imagery Distribution hub in Atlanta, Ga., last week. The television series is filming its 100th episode on the DVIDS mission and how Third Army Public Affairs tells service members’ stories around the world through DVIDS and satellite technology. “Third Army’s DVIDS and ‘Mail Call’ are trying to do the same job,” said R. Lee Ermey, host of “Mail Call.” DVIDS has provided Ermey and his...

Top editors from the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, responding to criticism over publishing stories about a government program that tracked millions of financial records in search of terrorists, on Saturday defended their decisions to publish government secrets. "We weight the merits of publishing against the risks of publishing," wrote Dean Baquet, Los Angeles Times editor, and Bill Keller, New York Times executive editor, in an op-ed piece that ran in both newspapers. "There is no magic formula, no neat metric for either the public's interest or the dangers of publishing sensitive information," the piece continued. "We...

Keeping stories alive Museum showcases history of area soldiers. RIC ROUTLEDGE The (Muncie) Star Press PORTLAND, Ind. -- The Museum of the Soldier does more than just tell the story of war; it tells the stories of soldiers from our area, and makes the museum very personal. The museum "is a mission to preserve and to remember all of the service men and women and (keep) their stories alive," said museum director and co-founder Jim Waechter. "I know it sounds trite, but it's true and, for me, it's very emotional." Bill Hinkle understands. His father, Wayne, practiced law in Portland...

The lawyer for a sergeant who led a squad of Marines during an incident that left civilians dead in Haditha, Iraq, says his client insists his unit was following military rules of engagement, did not intentionally target any civilians and did not try to cover up what it had done. No one has yet been charged in the Haditha case, which centers on allegations that a small number of Marines from Camp Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment killed 24 Iraqi civilians - included unarmed women and children - on Nov. 19 after a roadside bomb in the town killed...

My web site JunkScience.com celebrated its 10th anniversary on April 1, 2006. To mark the event, this column spotlights 10 big junk science stories of the last 10 years. In no particular order, they are: 1. The most toxic manmade chemical? That’s what some called dioxin, a by-product of natural and industrial combustion processes and the “contaminant of concern” in the Vietnam-era defoliant known as Agent Orange. Billions of dollars have been spent studying and regulating dioxin, but debunking the scare only cost a few thousand dollars. Keying off Ben & Jerry’s claim on its ice cream packages that “there...

U.S. Army Sgt. Dennis Gravelle photographs a member of Company A, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team searching an Iraqi suspect in the streets of Mosul, Iraq. U.S. Army photo U.S. Army Sgt. Dennis Gravelle Sergeant Tells Soldiers’ Stories By Maj. David Albano 138th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment MOSUL, Iraq, April 3, 2006 — Soldiers do what soldiers do; they fight wars. When they do, who better to tell their stories of heroism, commitment and sacrifice than a public affairs soldier? Reporting and photographing combat soldiers is the “Fighting� 138th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment’s mission...

We've got something for everybody this week: Cops as gangsters, DEA agents as thieving real estate speculators, a Texas police chief who never let any drug evidence get away, cops in Miami and Chicago planting drugs, evidence gone missing in East St. Louis, and, of course, another greedy prison guard, this time in Georgia. Let's get to it: In Los Angeles, at least 19 people, including five police officers have been charged with belonging to a ring led by LAPD Officer Ruben Palomares that committed armed robberies disguised as drug raids. Thirteen had been previously charged in the case, but...

Top 10 overlooked stories of 2005 -------------------------------------------------------- © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com If you're tired of hearing the rehashes of Katrina, Iraq, terrorism, et al., this will give you a little breather. 1. World evangelization. The Earth is becoming Christian at a very fast clip. My best estimate is that there are 64 million more Christians now than a year ago. That breaks down to 175,000 a day (births plus conversions minus deaths). The numbers are debatable, of course, but I've consulted with several of the best religion statisticians on the planet, and my stats are defensible, being partly based on denominational...

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day Free Republic made its debut in September, 1996, and the forum was added in early 1997.   Over 100,000 people have registered for posting privileges on Free Republic, and the forum is read daily by tens of thousands of concerned citizens and patriots from all around the country and the world. A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day was introduced on June 24, 2002. It's only a small room in JimRob's house where we can get to know one another a little better; salute and support our military and our leaders; pray for those in...

Wow, what a year! It seems just yesterday that Sandy "Burglar" Berger had found a novel way to preserve classified documents by pickling them in his pants and socks. But alas, those were the good ol' days of 2004. Thankfully, we have a fresh batch of classic comic events from 2005, so let's get right to it.

My choices of the most important 2005 news stories are: The legalized killing of Terri Schindler. The Texas sanitation workers who drowned those "stray dogs". The astounding positive changes in Iraq, and the Iraqi elections. The Gas gouging price schemes of summer - blamed and poorly justified on 'hurricane Katrina'. The ridiculous last minute ploy to attempt to circumvent the Law regarding "Tookie" Williams. How about your choices? In your opinion, what are your "most important 2005 news stories"?

Reporter's Notebook: The Making of "Winning Iraq" By Greg Palkot FNC's Greg Palkot It was one of those good news/bad news offers. The good news is you get to go to Iraq to do something more than the typical schedule of live shots. The bad news is you get to go to Iraq and do more than the typical schedule of live shots. Meaning: You put yourself in as much harm's way as nearly possible to find out how people not trying to cause harm are living. You see the point is, we, out of necessity in the business,...

Wicked witch of Left: how Hillary became a storybook villainBy James Langton(Filed: 09/10/2005) A children's picture book for conservatives whose villains include Hillary Clinton and Senator Ted Kennedy has become the surprise publishing hit of the year. Sales of Help! Mom! There are Liberals Under My Bed! have rivalled even the latest Harry Potter novel, with the book racing up the best-seller charts after it was published two weeks ago.   'Congresswoman Clunkton' Written by Katharine DeBrecht, a mother of three, it tells the story of two young brothers who try to make money from a lemonade stall but are thwarted...

Defend your nuts: a parable on property rights and hippies Suppose you were a squirrel. You would work hard to find the biggest nuts, and then stash those large nuts in secret places. You'd only do so if you had a high degree of assurance that those nuts would be there, unrotted and ready to eat, when your life depended on them. You'd have to depend on other squirrels to not steal your nuts, and assure them that you would do likewise. Now suppose that a pack of liberal chinchillas, calling themselves the Friends of the Forest, came along preaching...

Ancient site reveals stories of sacrificed horses www.chinaview.cn 2005-08-24 14:15:53 BEIJING, Aug. 24 -- A trip to Zibo might leave you with the similar impression as to a trip to Xi'an, especially when you visit the relics of horses buried for sacrifice. Zibo, in east China's Shandong Province, is the location of the state of Qi's capital in the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC). During this period, five feudal lords were able to gain control over the other states, with Duke Huan of Qi the head of the five. The difference between the horse buried for sacrifice in Zibo...

It’s safe to assume that the number one question asked at cocktail parties and on golf courses this weekend was who do you think “outed” CIA agent Valerie Plame. Likely, the answer depended on the recipient’s news source of choice. For example, some media outlets affirm that it was Karl Rove, President Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff. In their view, Rove should either be fired, or resign. Conversely, other news divisions maintain that Rove didn’t actually violate any national security statutes given that he was first told of Plame’s CIA involvement by a reporter, and that Plame hadn’t been working...

If I hear one more time how the United States better clean up its image in the world so we don't further alienate foreigners and generate more terrorists, I think I'm going to retch. There is no small amount of irony in the fact that the people who are doing their level best to make sure the news is dominated by stories portraying America as imperialistic and inhumane are the same ones warning that we dare not permit our image to deteriorate. They are determined to bring us stories week after week that depict the United States as a heartless...

It has been impossible these past few weeks to pick up a newspaper or turn on the news without being drawn into controversies arising out of confidential press sources. First, there was the Newsweek story, apparently based on a misinformed source, about mistreatment of the Quran at Guantanamo, that plunged that magazine into a violent international controversy. Then, "Deep Throat," the most famous confidential source of all, who guided Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein through the mysteries of Watergate, revealed himself to be Mark Felt, a former deputy director of the FBI. These events have played out against the backdrop...

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day Free Republic made its debut in September, 1996, and the forum was added in early 1997.   Over 100,000 people have registered for posting privileges on Free Republic, and the forum is read daily by tens of thousands of concerned citizens and patriots from all around the country and the world. A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day was introduced on June 24, 2002. It's only a small room in JimRob's house where we can get to know one another a little better; salute and support our military and our leaders; pray for those in...

As distrust of the press grows, news articles are relentlessly scrutinized for bias, but almost no one is focusing on stories that are simply ignored. For instance, a May 18 report in the Afghan newspaper Kabul Weekly said the riots that killed 17 people were not about disrespect for the Koran in American detainment camps--they were a show of force by the Taliban and another fundamentalist group, Hezb-e Eslami. "These demonstrations were organized by the Taliban and their supporters, and only some naive people joined the protesters," the newspaper said. The BBC picked up the story on May 22, but...

Newsweek's false account of a Koran being dumped in a toilet caused much damage to U.S. foreign policy. On May 20, the New York Times tried to do more damage. It devoted over 6000 words to the deaths of Afghans who had been in the custody of U.S. forces at Bagram Air Base on suspicion of involvement in terrorism. Seven people have been charged for alleged abuse of those described in the Times account. But that didn't stop reporter Tim Golden from including a lot of gratuitous details about the alleged abuse. The article was timed just before Afghan President...

First it was the Los Angeles Times who published the “Koran flushing story”, after the Newsweek story had been discredited. In an apparent attempt to help Newsweek find some of its lost credibility (and to take their own swipes at the US Military), now the rest of our leftist mainstream press has decided to print additional “Koran mishandling” stories. Hey! If a story is fake continue to print it, or other similar ones, so that maybe some of the uneducated will begin to believe them. Relying on a 2002 FBI report, notably one which merely referred to “allegations from detainees”,...

FALLUJAH, Iraq -- For three weeks, my FOX News team has been immersed in little more than what's been happening around us. Memorial Day isn't, as they say over here, on our radar screens. The soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines we've been covering and living with in Al Anbar Province have been focused on chasing terrorists, avoiding IEDs and staying alive. They call it situational awareness -- being alert to only the friendly and enemy situation in the immediate vicinity is an absolute necessity for these young Americans in harm's way in this hot, dusty and dangerous place. And because...

The old media are in critical condition. In its May 23 edition, Newsweek writers Michael Isikoff and John Barry reported that American military personnel at Guantanamo Bay had flushed the Muslim world's holiest book, the Quran, down the toilet – a report that led to blistering condemnations and a call for a holy war in the Arab world, violent anti-American protests in Afghanistan, Indonesia, Pakistan, et al., and 17 deaths and over 100 injuries so far. Mark Whitaker, the magazine's editor, wrote in a follow-up issue that he regretted "we got any part of our story wrong," but not that...

JERUSALEM – In what some here are calling a curious development, a multi-million-dollar investment fund founded in 1999 by Israel's Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres announced this week it would liquidate its assets and return the money to all investors, according to an Israeli media report. The move follows WorldNetDaily exclusive articles exposing a private probe, brought to Israel's Knesset Ethics Committee, questioning whether Peres profited from the fund, which secured investments from the Palestinian Authority and several supporters of the politician while he was a government minister – a conflict of interest that could require Peres to vacate his...

Venezuelan Information Minister Andres Izarra is stomping his feet and crying because the mean ol' US media is being so nasty to Marx-crazed tyrant Huga Chavez. According to Izarra, continuous publication of information disclosing false data and making baseless accusations in US media has prompted the Executive to conclude that Venezuela is "indeed" facing a "media offensive," a "dirty campaign or war similar to the one launched by Otto Reich in the 80's

Cliff Kincaid, editor of Accuracy in Media (AIM), commented that, "Rather's reference to Abu Ghraib, in the context of preparing the bogus attack on Bush, demonstrates that the agenda of Rather and CBS was not only to sabotage Bush's re-election campaign but to undermine the war in Iraq. They were looking for 'big' stories to hurt the U.S. at home and abroad. The Abu Ghraib story on CBS inflamed the Arab/Muslim world against the U.S., inevitably costing the lives of more American soldiers in Iraq at the hands of fanatical Muslim terrorists." AIM and Romerstein drew attention to another bombshell...

I honestly don’t know what is so threatening about Christmas to some. No matter how you spend your Christmas Season, if you belong to the vast majority of believing Americans, you spent it, well, somehow. When I was a kid, the rule was we could not open the presents under the tree until my dad had his first cup of coffee. One year, when my mother’s younger brother was visiting, I convinced him to make coffee at about two o’clock in the morning. It didn’t change the rule in later years, but, I think, it made my uncle a little...