Free Republic

My cellphone has not stopped ringing for the past ten minutes. Various sources inform that an announcement will come within the next few minutes from the Cuban government on Cuban TV and media. Stay tuned and we'll see if we've been manipulated once again or if today is the birth date of Cuba's liberty. Update: Here's the deal and what I know up to now, as of 1500 hours, August 24, 2007: First, South Florida Law Enforcement is on alert. An EOC (Emergency Operations Center) has been set-up and manned somewhere in Homestead. Im also told Local and State government...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Tim Johnson (news, bio, voting record) is reading news clippings and starting to do some office work from the hospital, almost two months after suffering a life-threatening brain hemorrhage. "At this point, he has requested more contact with office and is looking for updates from staff," his office said in a statement Friday. Spokeswoman Julianne Fisher said the South Dakota Democrat is starting slowly. "We do not anticipate him back (in the Senate) for several weeks," Fisher said. "We are bringing work to him rather than him coming to us. His first priority still is rehabilitation." Johnson...

<p>The Drop Broke Saddam's neck killing him instantly. At the executions following the Nuremberg Trials others were not so lucky.</p> <p>"..The executions, in a brightly lighted prison gymnasium where three looming black wooden gallows had been erected, were witnessed by a handful of Allied military officers and eight journalists, one of whom, Kingsbury Smith of International News Service, wrote a famous newspaper article, "The Execution of Nazi War Criminals, 16 October 1946," based on his eyewitness observations. Although Smith discreetly omitted mentioning it, the experienced Army hangman, Master Sgt. John C. Woods, botched the executions. A number of the hanged Nazis died, not quickly from a broken neck as intended, but agonizingly from slow strangulation. Ribbentrop and Sauckel each took 14 minutes to choke to death, while Keitel, whose death was the most painful, struggled for 24 minutes at the end of the rope before expiring..."</p>

Since it now seems very imminent, I decided that it was an appropriate time to start this up. Links to information and pictures (if we get them) can be posted here.

1:35 PM (ET) WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson was in critical condition recovering from emergency brain surgery Thursday, creating political drama over whether his illness could cost Democrats newly won control of the Senate. The South Dakota senator, 59, suffered from bleeding in the brain caused by a congenital malformation, the U.S. Capitol physician said. He described the surgery as successful. The condition, usually present at birth, causes tangled blood vessels that can burst unexpectedly later in life. Democrats hold a fragile 51-49 margin in the new Senate that convenes Jan. 4. If Johnson leaves the Senate, the...

IAF fighter jets dropped over 20 tons in bombs late Wednesday night on a Hizbullah bunker, possibly the hiding place of the group's leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, in the Bourj al-Barajneh refugee camp in southeast Beirut. It was still unclear who was in the bunker at the time and what their fate was, but IDF sources said the bunker was totally destroyed and that all that was left was a crater. The IDF obtained intelligence information late Wednesday night that Hizbullah leaders possibly including Nasrallah had taken refuge inside the bunker. A wave of aircraft immediately took to the air...

<p>Reliable sources in the Saudi capital of Riyadh said Friday that King Fahd is dead, reports the Saudi Institute.</p> <p>The king had been dead since late Wednesday, according several well placed sources in the capital of Riydah who spoke to the Saudi Institute, a pro-democracy think tank in Washington, on condition of anonymity.</p>

International terrorist Osama bin Laden and his Taliban associate Mullah Omar are alive, and a new cassette from the Al Qaeda leader is expected soon to prove his presence, according to a distinguished Pakistani journalist. "Both Osama and Mullah Omar are alive. There is no evidence to suggest that Osama bin Laden is dead, and there is no doubt about the presence of Mullah Omar as he regularly sends audio cassettes and letters," journalist Rahimullah Yuzufsai was quoted as saying Monday. Yusufzai said both Osama and Mullah Omar are in the Afghan region but that Osama was finding the going...

Virtually every single day across this country decisions are made to discontinue extraordinary medical intervention and people are allowed to proceed with the process of dying. In some cases feeding tubes are removed. More often ventilators are turned off. In one case a person starves to death, in another they are suffocated. It happens every day ... but you don't hear politicians screaming about murder. And why? Because those cases don't generate the media heat that this one has. What makes the Terri Schiavo case different? One thing .. the Schindler's, her parents. I have every bit of sympathy in...

Here's a way Jeb Bush may be able to save Terry Schiavo: Open an investigation into the possible assault that led to her comatose condition. Have the state pay for her maintenance to "preserve the evidence" and pay for language therapy for her so she can tell us what she knows about how she got into the coma. It struck me that the reason her husband wants her dead might be because he's afraid of what she'll say if she recovers. I don't see how a judge could possibly deny the state the right to preserve evidence of a serious...

DUBAI (AFP) - Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) will issue the next of his video messages after a massive attack on US territory, Saudi weekly Al-Majallah quotes an official of the terror network as saying. Quoting an e-mail received from a man who goes by the name of Abu Mohammed al-Ablaj, the weekly reports that "an emissary of bin Laden has informed me that the Al-Qaeda chief's (next) appearance (on video cassette) will come after a deadly, far-reaching operation on American territory. "In the video, bin Laden will evoke the success of his backers in once...

Deception gives life to leaders Body doubles, altered images date back to ancient times Julie Smyth National Post When Mao Tse-tung swam the Yangtze at the age of 73, observers were amazed at the speed he was travelling. He was known for swimming the river but the film footage showed him cutting through the water at remarkable pace for a man of his age. Photos from the same day also raised suspicion as they appeared to show a detached head bobbing on the water. There were enough witnesses to authenticate it was the Chinese leader but there is still debate...

They're not goths, their friends say, nor members of some satanic cult. But on a night in November, three Patchogue teenagers with mischief on their minds brought shovels to Cedar Grove Cemetery, Suffolk police say. Two of the teens chose a trio of grave sites at random, pried off the stone casket lids and put the skeletal remains in the trunk of the car their friend was driving. Later that night, the two brought the remains to a party at a friend's house nearby, police and friends of the three said. "They just wanted to know what dead people looked...