Free Republic

Mt. Redoubt Volcano has finally erupted. At about 10:30 pm, local time. Not much of a blowout, and it's too dark to see anything, but it has finally occurred.

Liberals love to think of themselves as intellectual and nuanced, but liberalism is incredibly simplistic. It's nothing more than "childlike emotionalism applied to adult issues." Very seldom does any issue that doesn't involve pandering to their supporters boil down at its core level to more than feeling "nice" or "mean" to liberals. This makes liberals ill equipped to deal with complex issues. Since liberals tend to support or oppose policies based on how those policies make them feel about themselves, they do very little intellectual examination of whether the policies they advocate work or not. That's because it doesn't matter...

If I were the least bit prone to gratuitous sympathy, I would be tempted now to feel quite sorry for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Poor, poor woman. She was quite nearly brought to all-out tears yesterday in New Hampshire, as she soliloquized over the sad state of her drooping campaign and how completely personal this is for her. Barack Obama seems to have effortlessly achieved voter adoration, fresher, younger, more at ease within his own skin than she will ever be. He would appear to be as much a natural as her own Bill. It may appear to a great many...

We have plenty of ice up here this winter. Don't let anybody in the South 48 tell you any different. We have so much, we are tired to death of it. If you need some, feel free to bring your own big trucks and come help yourselves. By now, though, what's left is nasty beyond words. It's yucky, dirty, and shredded. We call it "rotten" when it reaches this stage. Ugh. And a lot of it is plastered over every vehicle in the area. Man, when I get rich, I'm going to build a bunch of car-wash places in Wasilla....

VALDEZ, Alaska (AP) - This is a busy commercial and sportfishing town, and it normally smells a little ripe in late summer as unharvested pink salmon spawn and then die. But this year, residents and tourists have been holding their noses a little tighter. Millions more pink salmon than expected, most of them born at the local Solomon Gulch hatchery, migrated in from the ocean this season, overwhelming commercial seiners and processing plants.

I suppose there are lots of benefits to turning sixty-two, but from this side of the calendar, I am having a hard time seeing them. There are a few perks for "seniors," like discounts in some restaurants and sometimes on airline tickets or hotels. But most of the consequences of age are negative, and it's hard to accept them without a little cynicism if not outright anger. For one thing, the plant starts to break down around age 55, no matter what you do to keep it humming a precision tune. Here's a test: Sit on the floor. Now, get...

I understand you, I think. You want to believe that one party is not full of sh*t and the one that seems to have the "nicest" beliefs is the Democratic party. They insist they're pro-education, that Republicans aren't; they're pro-environment, Republicans aren't; they're pro-family, Republicans aren't; they're pro-minority, Republicans are not; they're pro-elderly, Republicans are not, etc, etc. But it's far more convoluted than that. Democrats say they're pro-education, but they're held hostage by the NEA which is pro-teacher, not pro-education. (My dad HATES when I bring this up). The NEA spent over $50M of teacher money to defeat school...

THE HAND IS AFOOT Okay, let's move on. I'm not tired of the Swiftvets' testimonies, because there is so much real truth about John F'n Kerry being revealed. But I want the truth about his postwar antics to be made as public as the swiftvets stuff has been in the last few days. What has come out in the last forty-eight hours regarding his making-free with the truth to inflate his own record is nothing short of scandalous. Too bad that there will always be that 40% of the voters who will put their X in the D box. The...

OPERATION TIGER CLAW -- DEBRIEFING My name is Bryan Henderson and I am an 18 year old senior attending Princeton Senior High School. Better known as Templar_Crusader on the PW forum, I am the proud leader of the small but growing PHS chapter of ProtestWarrior. Operation Tiger Claw was my first attempt at leading a protest against the apathy and leftism running rampant at my school. It all started on Friday, May 14th with a small act of conservative pride. My socialist history teacher was on another kick about how articulate Noam Chomsky was, when I finally reached my limit.

FREE TO CHOOSE</font color> Amid all the celebrations and the cookouts, something occurred to me about the holiday we celebrate today. The idea came from the pastor’s homily at Mass this morning. Today, of course, the trend of the message was “freedom.” Father spoke of the freedoms we all have, and named “…life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…” as those rights that couldn’t be taken away from human beings anywhere, born into whatever circumstances they might. He named another right, though…one I hadn’t heard mentioned, but which had immediacy, considering where his audience was seated. Father spoke of the...

Remember when… …milk cost 25 cents a quart, hamburger was 25 cents a pound, and a loaf of bread was 25 cents? A kid could go to the store with a dollar and buy everything his mom told him, and still have change. …the neighbors all knew whose kid you were, and they watched you as if you were their own while you all played outside at dusk? …a dollar's worth of gasoline would take you a hundred miles? …mothers wore aprons in the kitchen? …dads worked at jobs that required ties and belts and "dress-down Fridays were unheard of?...

While all animal adjectives don't end in -ine (simian, for instance), most of them do. There are -ine terms for more animals than most people know. Here's a short list of some of the lesser-known entries on the list: bats — pteropine bulls — taurine crows — corvine deer — cervine eagles — aquiline fish — piscine foxes — vulpine frogs — ranine geese — anserine hares — leporine horses — equine kangaroo — macropodine lobster — homarine mice — murine peacocks — pavonine pigs — porcine seals — phocine sheep — ovine ticks — acarine wasps — vespine wolves...

I received this today in an email from a friend who lives in Anchorage AK. Click the link for a good reason why most people who visit Alaska don't stick around after the first "Termination Dust" is spotted...

Please remember my daughter's step-daughter and her husband. They have received their orders, and both will be deployed to Tikrit soon. Here is the text of my daughter's email: "We just got word from Stephanie that she & Josh will actually be located in the same city in Iraq, so they will get to see each other sometimes. The bad news is: the city is Tikrit. L Dave is very unhappy today. They leave for Iraq in about a month, maybe 5 weeks. Josh’s unit will “parade”, that is, a convoy of vehicles surrounded by air cover & tank support...

Hi, Freepers! Time to ask all the new members to come up with a snapshot for the Freeper Photo Album. Click on the Source URL for the current album, and also to find instructions for sending in your pictures.

KRONBERG, Germany — Say this for European critics of President Bush's invasion of Iraq: Shocked and awed they are not. The guerrilla campaign in Iraq's Sunni Triangle is spawning political insurgencies in the United States and abroad. Many of those who lost the long, contentious debate about going to war have shifted to small-scale harrying actions aimed at crippling a presidential behemoth over time.

We celebrated a life yesterday that was so good that it was its own eulogy. A few disappointed voices who had hoped to hear more about the extraordinary life, but most of us already knew how joyful and complete Joe's life really was. Any eulogy would just be rehash. They had all watched him for the last 10 years or so, most of them had been involved deeply in his life, and others were privileged to be able to work with him, to worship with him, and just to be within his circle of friends. Many people today were weeping,...

Dear Friends: Mr. Redhead has passed away. He left us yesterday afternoon after a valiant battle against small-cell primary lung cancer, which is so virulent and fast-spreading that we hardly had time to take in the fact that he was ill before he was in extremis. The cancer was so advanced that no treatment was possible, and he was much too sick to be able to recover enough to receive chemo. I want to thank all of you faithful prayer warriors for you diligence in prayer on our behalf. I told him while he was still lucid that he had...

Dear Freeper Friends: Just an update on Joe's condition.He is doing well. The tests have had to be postponed because his platelet count was so very low, but they gave him a transfusion of plasma last night. Today, they will take "aspirations" of the bone marrow in his hips to try to track down the reason for this. I believe his lung biopsy is scheduled for Sunday. He is in good spirits, and although he is having a lot of pain, when he is medicated, he is cheerful and jovial. He is able to get up and walk around, and...

Dear Freeper Friends: Please pray for my husband. He has a tender swelling place just under his ribs on the right side. Xrays were inconclusive, and disclosed nothing more than an inflamed area that appeared to be on the base of the lungs. A CATscan was performed today, but we will have to wait until Monday to hear the results of this test. Please give it all you've got. He's a GOOD man.