Free Republic

Fort Hood Tragedy -- Barack Obama Gives "Shout-Out" Before He Comments on Shooting -- FOX News

Speeds of 150 mph were clocked early Friday by Grapevine police as they tried to stop a sports utility vehicle on Texas 114, according to reports. The driver of the 2008 Buick Enclave, Ismael Esparza, 37, of Southlake, was arrested for driving while intoxicated, said Lt. Todd Dearing, spokesman for Grapevine police. An officer was sent at 2:18 a.m. to check on a report of an intoxicated driver on Texas 121, north of DFW Airport, Dearing said. It was unclear if the Enclave was the same vehicle, but it passed the officer's patrol car at a very high speed,...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A coalition of mainline Protestant churches have authored a letter to members of Congress asking them to make certain the health care bills they are considering contain taxpayer funding for abortions. The letter comes from a group of churches that have long advocated the pro-abortion position. Under the umbrella of the Religious Institute, the church denominations and more than 1,100 pastors and church staff from the denominations endorsed the letter. The letter calls abortion a “morally justifiable decision” and opposed any amendments to the House and Senate bills, which current contain massive abortion funding, to strike...

At first I thought this article was a joke. I really thought that there was no way our government schools have gotten this bad. But I was wrong. Go figure. The Tucson Unified School District has decided to implement a two-tiered system for student discipline. One tier will be for blacks and Hispanics ... and the other tier will be for everyone else.

The most popular player in SEC history is saving himself for marriage. Unbelievable. I asked him this afternoon, and he didn't even blink before responding

When presidents are new, first impressions really count: Your demeanor (shirtsleeves, not jackets, in the Oval Office), your stature (move over, Mr. Sarkozy). Since President Obama's presidential bid was a very long affair-and since his predecessor left with a 28 percent approval rating-he came into office with an advantage. Americans surely liked him better than the previous guy. the underdog who beat the once-presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton. And, by the way, he also gave great speeches. But new presidents are always tested, as Joe Biden famously predicted. And Obama has had more than his share-an economic crisis that threatened to...

"An anti-Islam Dutch politician banned from entering Great Britain says he has been detained upon arrival at Heathrow Airport and will be returned home."

NEW DELHI: With Democrat senator Barack Obama busy in the run-up to the US presidential polls, a group of well-wishers in the capital have decided to send him a symbol of his lucky charm, Lord Hanuman, to help him emerge victorious. Obama's representative Carolyn Sauvage-Mar on Tuesday received a gold-plated two-feet-high idol which she will pass it on to the Obama after it is sanctified. The idol is being presented to Obama as he is reported to be a Lord Hanuman devotee and carries with him a locket of the monkey god along with other good luck charms. An hour-long...

Five hours after her chartered flight from Des Moines landed in New Hampshire, Clinton gave what may be the most striking speech of her campaign so far. Reeling from her surprisingly big loss in the Iowa caucuses, she is clearly reaching for a bold new way to combat winner Barack Obama -- though it doesn't appear she has settled on a consistent argument. Clinton usually only talks about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks when she speaks of her work helping Ground Zero workers cope with medical problems. But in an airport hangar this morning, she said: "We have people who...

MANSON, Wash. -- A Chelan County fire chief says a couple were lucky they weren't killed by a cow that fell off a cliff and smashed their minivan. District 5 Chief Arnold Baker says they missed being killed by a matter of inches Sunday as they drove on Highway 150 near Manson. The 600-pound cow fell about 200 feet and landed on the hood of the minivan carrying Charles Everson Jr. and his wife Linda of Westland, Mich., who were in the area celebrating their one-year wedding anniversary. They were checked at Lake Chelan Community Hospital as a precaution. The...

Police: Pa. Boy Stabs Brother Over Game Jul 17 01:16 PM US/Eastern LANSDOWNE, Pa. (AP) - A 13-year-old boy fatally stabbed his brother with a steak knife after the 16-year-old refused to turn over a video game controller, authorities said. Jahmir Ricks was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Antwan Ricks at their home outside Philadelphia. The older boy died of a single stab wound to the chest, police said, and a bent and bloody knife was recovered from the home. Lansdowne police said the younger boy told them, "I just stabbed my brother," when they arrived at...

(AP) LAKE STEVENS, Washington -- A woman was charged with manslaughter in the death of her 4-month-old son after she told authorities she taped a pacifier to his mouth to keep it from falling out. Bonnie M. Desmond, 19, was charged Tuesday in the death of Noah James Petersen. Bail was set at $500,000. Desmond called 911 Monday and said her baby was unconscious, but paramedics found the boy had been dead for hours, Fire District 8 Deputy Chief David Lingenfelter said. Prosecutors wrote in reports that Desmond later indicated a pacifier had been taped to the child's mouth but...

Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese Uses the Christian Fish Symbol for Homosexual Solidarity Contact: Phil Magnan, Director, Biblical Family Advocates, 011-36-1-246-2587, phil@bfamilyadvocates.com BUDAPEST, Hungary, Jan. 8 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Christian fish symbol is an ancient and sacred symbol for the persecuted Christians in the 1st century, as well as contemporary believers in Christ. But that symbol which showed that Christians identified with each other in their obedience to follow Christ is taking on a whole new meaning. The Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, as one of their ministries, ‘Ministry with Lesbians and Gay Catholics’ decided to make the sacred fish...

Faced with an alarming absence of men in its pews, one Iowa church is borrowing from successful fight promoters in a new form of "blended worship" designed to please a wide audience. The Third United Methodist Church of Ames will continue to use the historic liturgical form of worship, but has begun using bikini-clad "liturgy card girls" to announce each new part of the traditional service. "Men are staying away more and more on Sunday morning," said Pastor William Knight, a 52-year-old former marketing consultant. "We need to do whatever it takes to fulfill the Great Commission by winning...

From a Blog. (not by Zeugma - obviously) The Windows Shutdown crapfest I worked at Microsoft for about 7 years total, from 1994 to 1998, and from 2002 to 2006. The most frustrating year of those seven was the year I spent working on Windows Vista, which was called Longhorn at the time. I spent a full year working on a feature which should've been designed, implemented and tested in a week. To my happy surprise (where "happy" is the freude in schadenfreude), Joel Spolsky wrote an article about my feature. I would like to try to explain how this...

Sometimes you read an article in the newspaper, and you just wonder aloud how some people's views of the world can be so skewed, and wonder if they are even from the same planet as you. Now I admit that usually, in the context of politics, that is me reading the latest rant of a Howard Dean or an Al Gore. But in the article I am referring to today, it is Congressman Tom Davis of Virginia, a Republican, who heavily quoted in an article in today's Washington Times entitled, GOP Left Slams Club for Growth. Davis is the head...

More than two dozen students walked out of Skyline High School Friday morning to protest what they say is a ban that doesn't allow the American flag to be flown on school grounds. Several students said that they were upset that Mexican flags can be waved around but that American flags couldn't. They said that school officials confiscated their American flags because it has become inflammatory because of recent immigration issues. "When the immigration laws came out we noticed that a lot of Hispanics were waving Mexican flags and what we were thinking to ourselves is like, isn't the immigration...

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN co-writer LARRY MCMURTRY believes urban drama CRASH beat his film to the Best Picture Award, because Academy members discriminate against rural stories. The writer, who has been involved with four Oscar nominated films including THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, claims Crash won because it was set in Los Angeles - where most Academy voters live. He explains, "The three rural films (I was involved with) lost. The one urban film, Terms of Endearment, won. "Members of the Academy are mostly urban people. Crash was a hometown movie."

Upon leaving office, President Clinton established the William J. Clinton Foundation with the dual missions of constructing and endowing the Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas and continuing the work of his presidency to strengthen the capacity of people in the United States and throughout the world to meet the challenges of global interdependence. The Clinton Foundation advances its mission by using President Clinton’s public and private networks to initiate research, dialogue, and action, and is currently focusing its work in four critical areas: * Health Security * Economic Empowerment * Leadership Development and Citizen Service *...

My fingernails are bleeding. I had pretzel nuggets for breakfast. Must be getting close to the Alito confirmation. For those who wonder why women pace like caged animals every time they hear "Supreme Court" and "nominee," consider the news. Samuel Alito Jr. is reaching for the robe to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. This is the guy who, in his 1985 application to become deputy to then-Attorney General Edwin Meese, wrote that "The Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion." And if anyone wondered if he still felt that way, here's Alito's 90-year-old mother on the horn from...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Sanford mother says she will never be able to hold her newborn because an Orlando hospital performed a life-altering surgery and, she claims, the hospital refuses to explain why they left her as a multiple amputee. The woman filed a complaint against Orlando Regional Healthcare Systems, she said, because they won't tell her exactly what happened. The hospital maintains the woman wants to know information that would violate other patients' rights. Claudia Mejia gave birth eight and a half months ago at Orlando Regional South Seminole. She was transported to Orlando Regional Medical Center in Orlando...

January 12, 2006 -- A bright and talented 7-year-old girl was beaten to death yesterday in her Brooklyn apartment — where she was often tied to a wooden chair — even though child-welfare agents were already probing allegations of abuse, authorities said yesterday. Nixzmary Brown was unconscious and unresponsive when she was found by her mother yesterday morning in their Bedford-Stuyvesant home. Police said the tiny girl was found face up on the floor and had multiple bruises and injuries that were "in various stages of healing." A police source said Nixzmary had bruises on her wrists and ankles, apparently...

The UN is in session again and a number of resolutions have been on the table. An important one dealt with human rights abuses in Darfur. But, thanks to Sudan's many allies, this resolution was expected to be defeated and removed from the agenda. On the table were also 10 resolutions condemning Israel for human rights abuses. All of them were expected to be passed by the General Assembly. Welcome to a typical year at the United Nations. The Organization of the Islamic Conference — 56 Islamic states, almost 30 per cent of the UN membership — ensures that a...

Voici principal measurements, in particular employment education, announced or confirmed by the Prime Minister, Domenica de Villepin, at the time of its intervention at the French National Assembly, Tuesday November 8: EMPLOYMENT - All the young people of less than 25 years, applicants for work or not, living one of the 750 significant zones, will be received in the three next months for a "maintenance deepened" by the ANPE, in the local missions or the Houses of employment. A "specific solution" will be proposed to them in the three months (formation, training course or contract). - the social recipients...

Courtney Love tearfully admitted using drugs in violation of her probation terms and the rocker/actress was ordered Friday into a 28-day drug treatment program by a judge who said he had wanted to put her in jail.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic Sen. John Kerry urged the White House on Friday to release "in their entirety" all documents and memos from Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' tenure in two Republican administrations. "We cannot do our duty if either Judge Roberts or the Bush administration hides elements of his professional record," said the Massachusetts senator who was his party's presidential candidate last year. Opening what is expected to be a broader attempt by Democrats to pry loose documents, Kerry issued his statement as Roberts made the latest in a series of courtesy calls on senators in advance of confirmation...

Canadian oil giant EnCana is considering bringing in Chinese companies to construct and operate drilling rigs in the Colorado Rockies, as the region struggles to keep up with demand and rising energy prices. EnCana, a major player in the Piceance Basin of western Colorado, said Chinese labor is cheap and the workers are well-educated. The move would be scrutinized in Washington, where politicians are uneasy about allowing Chinese workers to acquire access to U.S.-based oil and gas facilities.

Clergy and laity show signs of schism over homosexuality, miracles and the Almighty HUNDREDS of Church of England clergy doubt the existence of God and fewer than two thirds believe in miracles, a study out today says. The report, published on the eve of the General Synod, refers to “very fragile faultlines along which the Church of England could be torn apart”. Congregations are much more conservative than most of the comparatively liberal clergy preaching to them. The report says that if committed Anglicans are clear about one thing it is the existence of God: 97 per cent have no...

Domestic violence arrest A Collier County man was arrested Tuesday and charged with domestic violence after officers say he pressed his index finger against the bottom of his girlfriend's nose. Police arrested Jerrold Neil Tierney, 67, of 413 Broad Ave. S., Naples. Reports say Tierney was arguing with his girlfriend, Sharon Clark, and they argued over her health, his drinking and who was making dinner.

The Information Office of the State Council will issue on March 3 the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2004, in response to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices issued by the United States, which irrationally condemns human rights in China. It will be the sixth Chinese report in response to the annual country reports on human rights by the United States in six consecutive years. The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2004, based on plenty of facts, is divided into six parts, uncovering the bad records of the United States concerning the invasions...

Will post the emails below!! This stems from a thread on FR (which I can't really remember by the way) where a group of dirty hippie anti-war protestors were getting together in St. Louis for some kind of summit. Anyway, I said something which enraged this guy to start spamming me with emails about it and even threatening me to a fight of all things!! It just shows how desparate the Left has truly become!!

Posted on Fri, Jan. 28, 2005 Man who ran over girlfriend gets 180-day sentence By Wendy Ruderman INQUIRER STAFF WRITER A man who ran over and killed his girlfriend on a Gloucester County highway was sentenced to 180 days in jail today. A Superior Court jury in December acquitted Martin Phelps, 44, of murder in the death of Julie Johnson but convicted him of the lesser charge of leaving the scene of a fatal accident. Judge John Tomasello said Phelps, of Gloucester Township, could opt to serve the 180 days, minus 83 days for time served, on weekends or on...

(paraphrased) WASHINGTON--It took awhile for the class to warm up to him, but former Washington Mayor and convicted felon Marion Barry quickly had about 15 Ballou High School students talking about chemistry. At a school in one of the District's roughest neighborhoods, Barry taught a lesson and called on sleepy-eyed students, pressing them for answers about chemistry. "One thing you always got to do is speak up," Barry told the class. "Be careful of the people that you steps on the way up," he said. "because sometime you'll meets them on the way down!"Besides taqlking chemistry, Barry, 68, told the...

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia "All the big shots were here yesterday." That's what Ronald Waldman, the World Heath Organization's chief consultant here, was telling a group of 15 epidemiologists sitting in his makeshift meeting area, a netless tennis court. He was referring to visits by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and senior U.N. officials. "They all said, 'What is the biggest need?' I told them the biggest need we have in the health sector is data. It's not expensive." [snip] Three assessment teams...went to the airport expecting to go on U.S. Navy Sea Hawk helicopters to several coastal villages that...

Al Jazeera cartoons.

Dear Joe: The major issue in the Swiftboat stories is, and always has been, what John Kerry did in 1971 after he returned from Vietnam. Kerry cast a long dark shadow over all Vietnam Veterans with his outright perjury before the Senate concerning atrocities in Vietnam. His stories to the Senate committee were absolute lies..fabrications..perjury..fantasies, with NO substance. That dark shadow has defamed the entire Vietnam War veteran population, and gave "Aid and Comfort" to our enemies..the Vietnamese Communists. Kerry's stories were outright fabrications, and were intended for political gain with the radical left..McGovern, Teddy and Bobby Kennedy followers, Jane...

Editor: I didn’t write this piece but I salute the man who did. He has said exactly what so many veterans have been thinking for so long. When I returned from Nam, my roommate in the 82d Airborne was SSGT Charles B. Morris, awarded the Medal of Honor while serving with the 173rd Airborne in Vietnam. I know firsthand it’s true that warriors like Charley are tormented in their dreams and cry out in their sleep as they re-fight their battles; yes that I know from bunking with him. But one thing I never heard him do was boast. Not...

Please, this is too priceless to pass up...an actual post of a depressed DU'er reacting to the Rathergate fiasco... "This is the end..some time in the near future, while we're remembering all our liberal friends who had been arrested on very suspicious "drug charges" and "child pornography charges", while we remember crying over those who were arrested as "terrorist sympathizers", while we shudder to think of what happened to those who just "disappeared" one day, we'll look back on this as the day we knew was the end of the Kerry campaign, the end of democracy in this country. The...

The anniversary of Sept. 11 will be painful for Arab and Muslim-Americans - as it will be for all Americans. After the terrorist strikes, Arab and Muslim-Americans became targets for random hate and violence. They became the latest ethnic group to be singled out in an American time of crisis. In the 1850s, Irish immigrants were persecuted. During World War I, German immigrants were suspect. During World War II, Americans of Japanese backgrounds bore the brunt of that conflict. America's legacy of nativism - the intense opposition to an internal minority because of its supposed foreign connections - reared its...

THE dearth of A-list celebrities attending the Republican National Convention has unleashed a bevy of B-listers on the town, including former liberal Stephen Baldwin. Though he doesn't admit to being a Republican, the actor is throwing his support to the team of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney under the banner of his new, born-again Christianity.

Jumbo shrimp. Steel wool. Original copy. Thunderous silence. Oxymorons at their finest. Now comes paid volunteers, an oxymoron at its worst, which was recently created by a state agency. Simply stated, nonprofit organizations throughout California could be devastated if volunteers have to be paid. By definition, a volunteer works, well, voluntarily. For free! They do not want, nor do they expect, to get paid. Seems fairly obvious. However, according to a 2003 legal interpretation of state labor law by the California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR), charity organizations are now required to pay volunteers, if they are to accept state...

Appeasement groups are fighting mad: To honor the troops, the Minnesota Twins are giving G.I. Joe action figures to 5,000 children. The baseball team plans to present Duke, "the calm and determined battlefield commander of the G.I. Joe team," at the game Monday night, the day after Independence Day, in what the Associated Press today called "the first patriotic giveaway in the major leagues this season." Uh oh. If something is branded as patriotic, you know the whining will begin. "It's not a credible way to honor those who've suffered the inhumanity of war," moaned Phil Steger, executive director of...

<p>I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you at this first U.N. conference on anti-Semitism, which is being convened six decades after the organization's creation.</p> <p>My thanks to the U.N. organizers and in particular Shashi Tharoor [the undersecretary-general for communications and public information] for their initiative and to the secretary-general for his willingness to engage. This meeting occurs at a point when the relationship between Jews and the United Nations is at an all-time low. The U.N. took root in the ashes of the Jewish people, and according to its charter was to flower on the strength of a commitment to tolerance and equality for all men and women and of nations large and small.</p>

Defending Sen. John Kerry against charges he fabricated claims of meetings with foreign leaders who offered their political support, Sen. Ted Kennedy said Sunday that the Central Intelligence Agency will verify Kerry's account. Asked to identify the leaders Kerry met with, Kennedy told NBC's "Meet the Press," "The CIA knows it . They work for the president. They can give him the names of all of those countries." Kennedy complained that the White House still hasn't identified the members of Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy task Force, or the White House official who leaked the name of CIA employee Valerie...

Did anyone else see that?! Just now on Fox News, Howard Dean was shown at one of his rallies singing his rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner. He got many of the words wrong and didn't seem to know other parts of it.

Special Dispatch - Egypt August 22, 2003 No. 556 (Translated from Arabic Language Sources) Egyptian Jurists to Sue 'The Jews' for Compensation for 'Trillions' of Tons of Gold Allegedly Stolen During Exodus from Egypt The August 9, 2003 edition of the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram Al-Arabi featured an interview with Dr. Nabil Hilmi, Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Al-Zaqaziq who, together with a group of Egyptian expatriates in Switzerland, is preparing an enormous lawsuit against "all the Jews of the world." The following are excerpts from the interview: (1) Dr. Hilmi: "... Since the Jews...

he author of a book denying the existence of a liberal media in America declared that the right wing media "machine" is now so powerful that it acts as "a steamroller" of liberal ideals. Eric Alterman - author of What Liberal Media? - appeared at a workshop called "Reversing the Right's Hold on the Media" on the final day of the three-day "Take Back America" conference sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future, which states as its goal pushing the Democratic party to the left.

Hellinahandcart just told me that the NYC council is going (or maybe already has passed) an Anti-War resolution. Today. This from the city that experienced the majority of 9-1-1.

As the last day of early voting wound down Friday, a federal judge ruled that the two-sheet ballot Bexar County has been using for two weeks violates state and federal laws. U.S. District Judge Edward C. Prado wrote that the ballot, which requires voters who want to vote a straight ticket to mark both sheets, "is a change affecting voting and is ineffective without preclearance from the Department of Justice under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act." The League of United Latin American Citizens, which filed the lawsuit protesting the two-sheet ballot, and the Democratic Party of Texas, which...