Free Republic

Don’t get us wrong, we love Judith Leiber’s funny clutches, but the Hello Kitty clutches made by the designer are selling for $4,000, and that sounds pretty insane. There’s lots more of Hello Kitty-themed accessories in this collaboration, and we don’t like them either.

TOKYO (Reuters) - The Japanese inventor of instant noodles, a snack that has sold billions of servings worldwide since its launch, died on Friday at the age of 96, according to an official at Nissin Food Products Co., the company he founded. Born in Taiwan in 1910 while it was under Japanese occupation, Momofuku Ando ran clothing and other companies in Taipei and Osaka early in his career. He was inspired to develop the world's first instant noodle product after coming across a long line of people waiting to buy fresh "ramen" noodles from a black market stall during the...

WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST Winning and losing the compliment game By THOMAS DILLON My, I'm impressed with the way you read. Your eyes just sail across the text like a clipper ship backed by fair winds and bound for a friendly port. Even when you blink, you don't slow down. Even when I type challenging words like "panegyric" or "ibetyourbreathcouldkillahorse," you barely pause on the page. What talent. What skill. How mighty you are. The problem is, I am not so certain that I mean this. I might actually think you are a bottlehead, with eyes that only a mother...

TOKYO, April 22 — The young Japanese civilians taken hostage in Iraq returned home this week, not to the warmth of a yellow-ribbon embrace but to a disapproving nation's cold stare. Three of them, including a woman who helped street children on the streets of Baghdad, appeared on television two weeks ago as their knife-brandishing kidnappers threatened to slit their throats. A few days after their release, they landed here on Sunday, in the eye of a peculiarly Japanese storm. "You got what you deserve!" read one hand-written sign at the airport where they landed. "You are Japan's shame," another...