Free Republic

The “American Dream”of a traditional nuclear family is getting harder and harder to come by, and the New York Times can hardly contain its glee. The Times’ entire Nov. 26 “Science Times” section was devoted to the “redefined” American family. In her featured articles, NYT reporter Natalie Angier identified traditional family as a thing of the past: “the old-fashioned family plan of stably married parents residing with their children remains a source of considerable power in American – but one that is increasingly seen as out of reach to all but the educated elite.” What’s taking its place? A lot...

Britney Spears lost custody of her children because she failed to produce a California driver's license and allegedly missed a drug and alcohol test, her lawyer said in a published report. "We weren't able to prove compliance with what the judge ordered," attorney Sorrell Trope told People magazine. "Specifically," he said, "the judge ordered that by 10 a.m. (Monday) morning, both parties show valid California driving licenses. I've been unable to produce evidence of that." Trope said another factor was a claim by ex-husband Kevin Federline's attorney that Spears had skipped a test. "There's no evidence that she actually failed,"...

...A recent study by... found that over 20 years the Joint Committee on Taxation] has always underestimated the revenues from tax hikes, while overestimating the revenues that are lost when taxes are cut.... The Joint Tax calculations of the "cost" of death tax repeal have been particularly wild and inexplicable. In 2001, JCT famously estimated that repeal would cost the Treasury $600 billion over 10 years -- twice as much as the death tax actually raises. The Joint Tax whiz kids built into their computer models the behavioral effects of lawyers working the interplay between the death and gift tax...

Please Forward This On-Line Poll To Others -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Should Taxpayers Be Forced To Give Nearly A Half-Billion Dollars A Year To Support PBS? Columnist George Will Says No. Do You Agree? Recently, at the request of Secretary of Education Margaret Spelling, PBS cancelled a program called Postcards From Buster. The program, aimed at small children, featured a lesbian couple. In addition, PBS featured an extended interview with Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato discussing their documentary Inside Deep Throat which is about the porn movie Deep Throat. PBS officials thought that the porn movie was so important that they just had...

The United Church of Christ, one of the nation's most liberal Christian denominations, accused CBS and NBC yesterday of rejecting a commercial it had produced about religious tolerance, which included an implication that other denominations did not welcome gays, because the networks feared hostile reactions from conservative political and religious groups. The networks said they turned down the commercial for the same reason they had rejected numerous issue-oriented commercials in the past: they do not allow advocacy advertising. Network executives also said that the church might have been more interested in gaining publicity. Both networks said they had accepted a...

WASHINGTON - Two American employees of the U.S. embassy in Israel and their families were slightly injured in the bombing at the Taba Hilton Hotel in Egypt, the State Department said Friday. Spokesman Richard Boucher declined to identify the employees or to discuss their duties at the embassy. They have returned along with their families to Israel, he said. Boucher said the United States does not know who may have been responsible for bombings at the hotel and at two other locations in the Sinai. "We condemn the attack in the strongest possible terms," he said. "We express our most...

<p>ALBANY, Indiana (AP) -- An Indiana wife looking for a little more appreciation went on strike at home -- and found instant celebrity.</p> <p>Kathy Thompson quit doing housework September 25, refusing to do laundry, cook or make the bed. She said she was tired of working, going to school and caring for the house while her husband Gary went out fishing.</p>