Free Republic

Ok, it has been a real pleasure chatting with everyone here on FR (well, just about everyone anyways) but it's time for me to move on. I've got some work to do that is going to require 110% effort from me for extended period of time and I can't have any distractions whatsoever. I'll stop by from time to time but am afraid if I still have my account I will be tempted to post and then - as is my wont - get into silly, useless debates about things I a) don't really care about, or b) don't know...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal agents on Thursday said they had broken up a ring of drug smugglers who used tombstones featuring the Virgin Mary to move hundreds of pounds of cocaine into the United States from Mexico.

Does anybody know of any good alternatives (i.e. less biased) to Newsweek, but at about the same level (in terms of the difficulty of English), and similar content (i.e. national and international news and politics.) What about Time or U.S. News and World Report? Anything else? Thanks in advance for any help.

Go to cnn and take a look at the caption below the picture of Preisdent Bush and Ray Nagin reads: "New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who slammed the federal response, speaks to the president." Notice how they capitalized Mayor but couldn't bring themsevles to show the same respect for the President. Inadvertent mistake or intentional?

By PETER ENAV, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 31 minutes ago TAIPEI, Taiwan - Taiwan's ruling party won elections Saturday for a special assembly charged with amending the island's constitution, giving a big boost to President Chen Shui-bian's policy of resisting unification with rival China. ADVERTISEMENT With 99 percent of the ballots counted, the Central Election Commission said the Democratic Progressive Party had won 42.5 percent of the vote, against 38.9 percent for the opposition Nationalist Party. The vote — for the ad hoc National Assembly — had developed into a test of strength for Chen's policies, following the visits...

Ok, tonight I was at Barnes&Nobles with a couple of my classmates. We were sitting in the coffee shop reading Unte Reader with all the other Leftists (kidding!) Anyways, this guy walks in, and immediately my spidey sense starts to tingle. He kinda walks around the coffee shop and looks around a bit and then leaves - I was of course eyeing him the whole time. About 5 minutes later him comes in again. This time he draws out of his pants pocket a small white plastic spray bottle and starts spraying it around the room - trying to be...

So what do we do that we have won? How do we treat our liberal friends, relatives and co-workers? I hope everyone will try to treat the more reasonable ones with respect and understanding - we need to bring Americans back together not cause more division. Maybe we can even convince a few to reconsider their views on conservatives, President Bush or the Republican party. For the mentally deranged hardcore Michael Moore/Bush Knew idiots I think it would be prudent to have contact information of several qualified mental healthcare providers on hand. Seriously, I hope those people will learn from...

I am looking for some place to find polling data from just before the 2000 elections at the state level. Does anyone here have any ideas where I might be able to find this? Thanks in advance.

Sorry if this has already been posted. It's important enough that it deserves to be posted at least twice. It seems the Nytrogate story is chock full of holes. Here's a quote from the ABC article: "The information on which the Iraqi Science Ministry based an Oct. 10 memo in which it reported that 377 tons of RDX explosives were missing — presumably stolen due to a lack of security — was based on "declaration" from July 15, 2002. At that time, the Iraqis said there were 141 tons of RDX explosives at the facility. But the confidential IAEA documents...

Did you guys notice anything strange during this (the last debate)? President Bush made several funny comments to which the audience responded to with warm laughter. A few moments later Kerry responded to the moderator's question (about strong women in their lives). Anyway, Kerry told a lame joke and stood there waiting for the response from the audience...there was none. Several seconds passed by then the moderator laughed. This was then followed by nearly uproarous laughter. Why the delay? Was this real laughter from the audience or from a laugh machine? After this I noticed that everytime Kerry told a...

Drove by the Los Angeles Federal building on Wilshire today. I was expecting to see some people solemnly giving passing vehicles a reminder of the loss of 3000+ people at the hands of Islamic extremist on 9/11. Instead there was a dozen or so idiots with signs exclaiming that the "CIA engineered 9/11", "Bush Knew about 9/11", and so on the corner. I was pretty darn angry so I shouted a few choice words to express my disagreement with their message. Unbelievable that these idiots would stoop to this sort of thing on today of all days. I would have...

I just did a title search for "Unfit for Duty" on Amazon.com and nothing came up. Did a subject search on "John Kerry" and again "Unfit for Duty" did not come up. Any ideas what is going on here? Am I paranoid or perhaps there are some Kerry supporters inside Amazon suppressing the free flow of information is the grand Marxist tradition.

Hmmm...I don't know what to say.

AP News Alert The Associated Press Friday, August 22, 2003; 11:26 AM WASHINGTON - Both soldiers claimed as captured in Iraq are safe and accounted for, military says.

I couldn't believe it. The other day I was just about to leave campus late in the afternoon when I heard the bells in the clock tower peal "My country tis of Thee, Sweet land of Liberty..." I just stood there stunned - I couldn't believe my ears. This was at UCLA. They should play this everyday in order to smoke out all anti-American rats. They won't be able to stand it - it should be played everyday about noon. I wondered for a moment if they college Republicans might have stormed and taken over the clock tower in order...

I attend a major University on the East Coast. I have this professor for Calculus - he is always making various political comments. Anyways, a couple days ago he walks in and makes some derogatory comment about the President to the class and then proceeds to pass out to the entire class political propoganda attacking the Presidents policies- nothing whatsoever to do with the class subject . I thought this was really inappropriate and was pretty pissed off for the rest of the class which made it even more difficult to concentrate on his typically disorganized lecture. What do you...

A question: when did the usage of the word "oriental" to describe a person fall out of favor among the PC thought police? I recall entering the university around 1990 and being told repeatedly that "oriental" was a racially deragatory term and that "rugs are oriental, not people." I had never heard of such a thing before this and I had been closely involved with a number of "oriental" people in varying capacities for years prior to this. What's up with this? Is there really anything negative about the word "oriental?" I believe that the term is "occidental" for Westerner...

It is amazing to see the recent protests. Where were these people after 9/11. Where was there anger and outrage? Why didn't these people come out and unequivicably condemn the 9/11 attacks without the lame justifications and rationalizations? Am I questioning the loyalty of some of these people to the United States? You bet I am. Just today as I was driving in Los Angeles I saw several men driving around town in car with one of them waving a large Palestinian flag out of the window. I wonder if these men shed a tear on the morning of 9/11...