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Betty Friedan, who died at 85 on Feb. 4, issued plenty of misinformation during her long life. The author of “The Feminine Mystique,” however, would be hard-pressed to match the nonsense being written about her. Consider, for example, Marie Cocco of the Washington Post Writer’s Group. “There’s no way to thank the mother you’ve never acknowledged,” wrote Cocco, who evoked Friedan’s “deep cultural legacy.” Because of Friedan, the writer argues, millions of women opted out of the “psychic suffering” of suburban housewives during the 1950s and 1960s. More specifically: “Hers was a generation of educated women forced by the oppressive...

12/7/2005 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- Take four security forces Airmen, throw them on a UH-1 Huey helicopter and what do you get? A combined defense team that is fast, efficient and keeps the country’s nuclear arsenal well protected. Helicopter aircrews and security forces at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., have integrated parts of their missions to form response teams for any alarm or threat to a nuclear missile site. The joint teams consist of security forces Airmen riding in helicopters. The pilots land and the cops are able to deploy and secure an area. This reduces their response time from...

Gulfport’s “human rights” [gay] ordinance: progress or height of hypocrisy? In a recent article titled, “A Tale of Two Counties Progress in Gulfport and another step backward in Hillsborough“ , we are told by Wayne Garcia: “As Hillsborough County again made international headlines for its gay-hating policies last week, the small and funky city of Gulfport in Pinellas County took a different route.Gulfport became just the fourth government in Florida - and the first in Tampa Bay - to adopt a human rights ordinance that protects gays, lesbians and the transgendered.” But, when one analyzes the touted “human rights ordinance”...

DEAD SEA, Jordan (Reuters) - Women face a pervasive lack of freedom in the Arab world and no country in the region meets international standards for protecting their rights, human rights activists charged on Saturday. Freedom House, a U.S.-based group, said a study of countries in the broader Middle East and North Africa had found that women were disadvantaged in nearly all areas of society, including justice, the economy, education, healthcare and media. The study, which was distributed at a World Economic Forum regional meeting in Jordan, called for Arab governments to eliminate discriminatory laws and remove barriers to women...

First, let us understand what the Terri Schiavo matter was not about: Despite ideological diatribes from David Corn at The Nation, this was not "an ugly big-government attempt to intervene in a family conflict" designed to appease "religious right crusaders." Despite ranting from Robert Scheer, also at The Nation, this was not "egregious political opportunism and shameless trafficking in human misery," and the citation of dubious polls won't validate Scheer's hope that the majority of Americans want to see a helpless woman starved to death by judicial order. And despite hysteria from the Los Angeles Times, this was not "a...

You thought the modern DNC leadership just disrespected life in the womb… Now you have a chance to see these gutless wonders in real action as an innocent defenseless woman’s life hangs in the balance… Too bad Terri Schiavo isn’t a California seal, or a blue sperm whale… If she was, every tree hugging bleeding heart liberal in the country would be lining up as a human shield to protect her right to life including Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer and good old Uncle Teddy. As it is, they are silent because Terri is just a useless human being who has...

It is not because Native Hawaiians should be cherished less but that equality under the law should be loved more that the Akaka Bill to create a race-based government should be opposed. The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs blithely approved the legislation Wednesday without seriously examining its constitutionality. The bill previously passed the House in 2000 as a "noncontroversial," like treating South Carolina's firing on Fort Sumter as a July Fourth celebration. The proposed legislation would ordain a Native Hawaiian Governing Entity cobbled together by Native Hawaiians meeting a threshold of Native Hawaiian blood. The Entity would negotiate with the...

The Sugar Association pays for a “consumer” Web site to scare the public with pseudo-science about Splenda.

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

QUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | MEETUP | C-LOG | ISSUES townhall.comPrinter-friendly versionSocialism is evilWalter E. Williams (back to web version) | Send July 28, 2004 What is socialism? We miss the boat if we say it's the agenda of left-wingers and Democrats. According to Marxist doctrine, socialism is a stage of society between capitalism and communism where private ownership and control over property are eliminated. The essence of socialism is the attenuation and ultimate abolition of private property rights. Attacks on private property include, but are not limited to, confiscating the rightful property of one person and...

(AP) The U.S. Small Business Administration has been ordered to pay more than $500,000 to a former employee who said her boss forced her to quit for refusing to go along with a scheme to discriminate against male workers. A federal judge said the agency and its director, Hector Barreto, should have known about the mistreatment of Mary Conway-Jepson in the agency's Montana office, and failed to do anything. Jepson said she was asked to help in a scheme to rid the SBA office of what former district director Jo Alice Mospan considered too many male supervisors. When she refused,...

It used to be said, before gays "came out," that they were in "the closet." I wish they would go back into it. The rest of us have been in "Pandora's Box ever since. Not that long ago, in kinder, gentler times, when grown adults actually kept their private business private, and fringe rebels did not get in everyone's face to make their point, what is now considered to be an alternative lifestyle" was in fact, a deviancy. The only thing that has changed is that in 1973, (the same notorious year that also gave us Roe vs. Wade) the...

It used to be said, before gays "came out," that they were in "the closet." I wish they would go back into it. The rest of us have been in "Pandora's Box ever since. Not that long ago, in kinder, gentler times, when grown adults actually kept their private business private, and fringe rebels did not get in everyone's face to make their point, what is now considered to be an alternative lifestyle" was in fact, a deviancy. The only thing that has changed is that in 1973, (the same notorious year that also gave us Roe vs. Wade) the...

I have long contended that our socialist system of government is in fact nothing but a renovation of the ancient system of aristocracy. Whenever you have different rules and punishment for people based upon their status, in this case the status of being a government employee, you have injustice (although the ones receiving the preferential treatment would of course argue against you). A good example of this has occurred recently in Oklahoma City where John Carl Marquez was arrested for suspicion of beating his wife and faces a year in prison and a fine. During the arrest, the man also...

<p>BERKELEY, Calif. - Ward Connerly, who led the fight to drop race-based admissions at the University of California, wants the system to stop sponsoring race-themed activities such as separate ceremonies for black graduates.</p> <p>Connerly, a member of UC's governing board of regents, is proposing a ban on using UC funds for extracurricular events designed for specific race, ethnic or sexual orientation groups.</p>

Conservatives may be missing a beat by dismissing the Bush=Hitler crowd as ignoramuses. Like their fellow travelers in Hollywood, the peace crowd is not putting forth a coherent/accurate historical argument. They’re not trying to. As many conservatives have rightly said, it’s theater. It’s performance art. Bush=Hitler is ridiculous on its face as a matter of fact, but this isn’t how they’re using it. They’re using Hitler as a cultural symbol. This is how their ideas spread and, unfortunately, have an impact.

Equal protection under the Law...

<p>LEWISTON, Maine (AP) A woman whose parents were immigrants and who was a multicultural officer for Canada starts her work Monday helping Maine's second-largest city adjust to the arrival of about 1,100 Somali refugees.</p> <p>The atmosphere has gotten tense in the city of 36,000 since February 2001, when Somalis started arriving from other U.S. cities.</p>

<p>Local Ababda nomads dig in one of the streets in Berenike, which holds an array of artifacts that scientists say reveals an "impressive" sea trade between the Roman Empire and India.</p> <p>LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Spices, gems and other exotic cargo excavated from an ancient port on Egypt's Red Sea show that the sea trade 2,000 years ago between the Roman Empire and India was more extensive than previously thought and even rivaled the legendary Silk Road, archaeologists say.</p>