Free Republic

A widely regarded Southern symbol of pride and states' rights is standing in the way of would-be Marines in their quest to serve their country – a Confederate battle flag. Straight out of high school, one 18-year-old Tennessee man was determined to serve his country as a Marine. His friend said he passed the pre-enlistment tests and physical exams and looked forward with excitement to the day he would ship out to boot camp. But there would be no shouting drill instructors, no rigorous physical training and no action-packed stories for the aspiring Marine to share with his family. Shortly...

The secret of honey bees' success has been discovered living deep inside their hives - a special type of bee which acts like a living radiator, warming the nest and controlling the colony's complex social structure. The "heater bees" have been found to play a crucial, and previously unappreciated, role in the survival of honey bee colonies. Using new technology that allows sceintists to see the temperature inside the bee hives, researchers have been able to see how heater bees use their own bodies to provide a unique form of central heating within a hive. They have found that these...

Famed PLO terrorist-turned-Christian Walid Shoebat is warning that the United States needs to be watching not Iran, Syria or even Hamas and Hezbollah as closely as it needs to follow the actions of the Islamic leaders of Turkey. It was just a few months ago when Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin reported Turkey appeared to be seeking the restoration of the old Ottoman Empire. The report said Turkey's increasing lack of interest in the European Union combined with its efforts to re-establish its influence in Turkic countries of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and its outreaches to Russian, Syria and...

A 34-year-old American has broken his own world record by building the largest free-standing house of playing cards ever recorded. Bryan Berg set the new Guinness World Record Wednesday by building a giant replica of the Venetian Macau hotel and casino inside the resort in China's gambling hub. The structure used a total of 218,792 playing cards and took 44 days to complete. Completed, it is 35 feet long, 10 feet tall, and weighs 600 pounds. "I can't help it, I was trained as an architect and I have taken just enough structural engineering to be dangerous," said Berg, who...

STOCKHOLM (AFP) – A dozen previously unknown shipwrecks, some of them believed to be up to 1,000 years old, were discovered in the Baltic Sea during a probe of the sea bed to prepare for the installation of a large gas pipeline, the Swedish National Heritage Board said Monday. "We have manage to identify 12 shipwrecks, and nine of them are considered to be fairly old," Peter Norman, a senior advisor with the heritage board, told AFP. "We think many of the ships are from the 17th and 18th centuries and we think some could even be from the Middle...

ATLANTA - A white Arkansas team’s win in a national “stepping” contest has sparked a fierce controversy over whether the integration of a once exclusively black college tradition constitutes a form of cultural theft. “What has happened is black youth culture, what people would call hip-hop, sort of made black culture . . . appealing to all kinds of people,” said Walter Kimbrough of historically black Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark., an expert on black Greek life. The uproar began when the University of Arkansas’ all-white Zeta Tau Alpha team beat out five teams in last weekend’s Sprite...

BOMB hunting dog Treo has been awarded the animal version of the Victoria Cross — for saving Our Boys by sniffing out Taliban booby traps. The heroic nine-year-old black labrador twice averted catastrophe by seeking out rigged devices with his handler Sergeant Dave Heyhoe. And today loyal Treo — who is now retired — was handed the highest honour for a military dog, the Dickin Medal, by animal charity PDSA. Devoted Treo saw frontline action patrolling with soldiers in Sangin, Afghanistan, in 2008 — dashing into danger with his super-sensitive nose to sniff out deadly devices.

I hope black people will learn a lesson from the earthquake that hit Haiti. If they don’t learn anything from it, then I throw up my hands in despair and give up. Let’s start with a few basic facts. Until the earthquake, I never knew there was a place called Haiti. I was taught geography at school but I cannot remember a time when the mistress told us about Haiti. It must have been one of those insignificant countries that we had no reason to know about. I was fairly good at geography because I knew which country was on...

Reviewing the late donations to Martha Coakley's campaign -- the checks that came in as she collapsed -- I note the same drug company PACs and Washington lobbyists, but I also note that Larry Lucchino, president and part owner of the Red Sox, cut a $2,000 check to Coakley's campaign on January 13. She probably would have benefited more if he had given her a lesson in recent Sox history -- namely, that Curt Schilling is not a Yankees fan. Also, Sox chairman Tom Werner gave Coakley $2,000 on January 14. Her Schilling diss was on the 15th. Some other...

"If these folks want a fight," President Obama said Thursday, tossing a rhetorical barb at Wall Street, "it's a fight I'm ready to have." But what if they don't want a fight? To begin with the substance of his proposed regulations: Right now, all we have is a vague first draft. We know they will be fleshed out, rewritten, amended, tweaked, ping-ponged, and massaged. All along, we know Wall Street lobbyists will be at the table. The Wall Street "fat cats," as Obama calls them, probably aren't really looking for a fight as much as a seat at the table...

The GHOST of Ted Kennedy Speaks!!

PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) A pizza deliveryman was shot and killed during a robbery in the Belmont section of Philadelphia. Authorities say the victim, who works for Accu Pizza, was shot while making a delivery at 41st and Aspen Streets at about 10 p.m. Wednesday. Police arrived to find 36-year-old Kouakou Jacques of Upper Darby lying in the street with a gunshot wound to the neck. Jacques was rushed to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania where he died. Investigators said Jacques responded to a call for pizza, but found the address was a vacant lot where the suspect(s) were...

A restaurant in Israel has claimed the world record for the largest plate of hummus, beating a record set in Lebanon last year. The four tonnes of the chickpea dip mashed up by 50 chefs in Abu Gosh, west of Jerusalem, almost doubles the Guinness World Record set in Beirut two months ago. The rivalry between Israel and Lebanon over hummus taps into a deep-seated animosity. It's not that spicy, it's not that salty - in fact, hummus does not really have that much flavour at all.

(Jan. 8) – As a result of the deforestation of the Amazon basin, a startling discovery has been made. Hidden from view for centuries, the vast archaeological remains of an unknown, ancient civilization have been found. A study published in Antiquity, a British archaeological journal, details how satellite imagery was used to discern the footprint of the buildings and roads of a settlement, located in what is now Brazil and believed to span a region of more than 150 miles across. "The combination of land cleared of its rain forest for grazing and satellite survey have revealed a sophisticated pre-Columbian...

Another day, another left-wing slander using computer animation. This time it is aimed at the Tea Party Movement. The only difference: This time, the video is hosted on a web site that YOU are funding! That’s right my fellow racists, the NPR web site funded in large part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. No, NPR did not create the video, it is the work of Mark Fiore. But, strangely, NPR embedded the video in its blog without any further comment. It is clearly an implicit endorsement of the views contained therein. And it is an outrage, to say the...

The number of gun permits issued in Massachusetts surged by more than 15 percent over the past two years, reversing nearly a decade of steady declines and marking a pronounced departure for a state known for its antigun sentiment. The magnitude of the rise, evident in nearly every corner of the state, surprised law enforcement officials, and gun advocates and opponents alike. Some saw it as an echo of similar spikes across the country after President Obama’s election, when heavy gun sales were attributed to fears that he would impose strict new gun laws. But with more women and elderly...

ABC's Karen Travers reports from Washington: President Obama told ABC News’ Charles Gibson in an interview that if Congress does not pass health care legislation that will bring down costs, the federal government “will go bankrupt.” The president laid out a dire scenario of what will happen if his health care reform effort fails. “If we don't pass it, here's the guarantee….your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you,” he said. “Potentially they're going to drop your coverage, because they just can't afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms...

WASHINGTON (Dec. 5) -- Sarah Palin poked fun at herself in a speech to journalists Saturday night, drawing laughter when she announced she "came down from my hotel room and I could see the Russian Embassy." The 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate also joked that she had orginally thought of titling her book "How To Look Like a Million Bucks For Only $150,000" before settling on "Going Rogue." In one of the controversies surrounding her candidacy, the campaign spent about $150,000 on her wardrobe. Palin was the Republican speaker at the winter dinner of the Gridiron Club, an organization of...

Copenhagen Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard sent postcards to city hotels warning summit guests not to patronize Danish sex workers during the upcoming conference. Now, the prostitutes have struck back, offering free sex to anyone who produces one of the warnings. Copenhagen's city council in conjunction with Lord Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard sent postcards out to 160 Copenhagen hotels urging COP15 guests and delegates to 'Be sustainable - don't buy sex'.

PLYMOUTH, Mass. -- As family and friends mourn a fallen U.S. paratrooper on Veteran's Day, his mother made an emotional plea to President Barack Obama that it's time to either bring home the troops or end the war in Afghanistan. The body of Benjamin Sherman, 21, was recovered in Afghanistan Tuesday. "It's time we do something. This has gone on too long. They either need to come home or we need to end it," a tearful Denise Sherman said.