Free Republic

ALL IN THE same week, Governor Mitt Romney, the US Catholic bishops, the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, and the Presbyterian Church USA drove themselves nuts over homosexuality....

Onscreen king of kvetch Larry David just couldn't contain himself at a Martha's Vineyard parking lot last weekend when an errant shopping cart scratched his beloved BMW 530. According to Page Six, the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "Seinfeld" creator and his wife were outside a Vineyard Haven supermarket when a runaway cart made what one eyewitness said was "a little dent" in David's $75,000 car. David proceeded to call the cops and started, says the witness, "in a golf shirt and shorts, flapping away with his arms. It was just like an episode on his show." Vineyard cops confimed that...

THERE were community meetings in Seattle on Wednesday. Some of the couples who had sued to overturn Washington’s ban on same-sex marriage, a case they lost before the state’s Supreme Court earlier that day, were going to appear. Gay and straight elected officials who support “marriage equality” were going to make speeches. I probably should have been there too. But I had a previous engagement. The Seattle Mariners were playing the Toronto Blue Jays at Safeco Field. My 8-year-old son — adopted at birth by my boyfriend and me — loves the M’s almost as much as he hates the...

Time wasted deleting junk e-mail costs American businesses nearly $22 billion a year, according to a new study from the University of Maryland. Related Links • Spam Cost Survey (Univ. of Maryland)   A telephone-based survey of adults who use the Internet found that more than three-quarters receive spam daily. The average spam messages per day is 18.5 and the average time spent per day deleting them is 2.8 minutes. The loss in productivity is equivalent to $21.6 billion per year at average U.S. wages, according to the National Technology Readiness Survey produced by Rockbridge Associates, Inc., and the Center...

If there was ever a "Most Valuable Player" award given for a political campaign, this year it would most definitely go to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth[1]. Because they spoke out against a liberal Democrat, these men are getting a constant anal exam by the Kerry campaign and Kerry's socialist cheerleaders in the major media. Yet, no matter the heavy amount of professional media harassment received, the Swifties continue on, walking point, representing American veterans with courage and honor. And look at that faux war hero, John Kerry, running scared like a little girlie-boy again. With just two little...

Bruce Springsteen, REM, and more tour for political change. SEATTLE, WA.  Friday 8.6.2004  /netmusiccountdown.com/ -- Is political change in the air for the USA? Artists like Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, REM, John Mellencamp, Babyface, John Fogerty, The Dave Matthews Band, Ben Harper, Pearl Jam and the Dixie Chicks hope so. These musicians, along with James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Jurassic 5, Keb' Mo', Bright Eyes, Death Cab for Cutie and My Morning Jacket, have formed a coalition of musicians who make up the Vote For Change Tour. Presented by MoveOn PAC, the tour launches October 1, one month before the...

 Internet Use and Early Syphilis Infection Among Men Who Have Sex with Men --- San Francisco, California, 1999--2003 During the summer of 1999, an outbreak of early syphilis among men who have sex with men (MSM) who met their sex partners on the Internet (1) presaged a rapidly expanding syphilis epidemic in San Francisco. By 2002, San Francisco had the highest rates of primary and secondary syphilis of any metropolitan area in the United States (2). During 1998--2002, the number of early syphilis cases increased, from 41 cases in 1998 to 495 cases in 2002 (3). Concomitant with the increase...

    Teresa Heinz Kerry, left, her husband Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, vice-presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth Edwards raise their hands at the end of a rally at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, N.M., Friday, July 9, 2004. (AP Photo/Jake Schoellkopf) NEW YORK -- Bear hugs. Pats on the back. Shoulder squeezes. John Kerry and John Edwards are all over each other.The two Democrats and one-time rivals have shared so much public affection since becoming a team Tuesday that the presidential candidate even joked about it Friday in New York after...

WASHINGTON -- About two months after the Red Cross warned US commanders of widespread prisoner abuses, the commanding general at the Abu Ghraib prison assured the Red Cross in a confidential letter that Iraqi detainees were being given the best treatment possible and that even more ''improvements are continually being made."