Free Republic

Ted Koppel kicked off his neo-pundit career by delivering a stern global warming speech in New York while outside a merciless snowstorm bore down on the Eastern Seaboard in a brutal blast of freezing -- Oh, wait -- that was Al Gore, wasn’t it? I tend to get all these neo-pundits mixed up. Mr. Koppel’s post-Nightline era more correctly began with a January 29 Op-Ed in the New York Times which is actually quite similar to Mr. Gore’s address both in fervent presentation and excruciatingly bad timing. Which may explain my confusion. Ted, likely grateful to now be immersed in...

Five teenage girls were killed today and forty-six people injured when a school bus overturned in an horrific crash. The bus taking 51 youngsters home from secondary schools in in Navan, Co Meath was involved in a collision shortly after 4pm in Kentstown. President Mary McAleese and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern have spoken of their shock, and passed on their sympathies to the families of the dead children. A Garda spokesman confirmed the five dead were all pupils at the Loretto Convent School, Navan, and said six other children were in a critical condition in hospital. He said students from the...

One of Ireland's best known conservative journalists Kevin Myers is currently under 'fire' - quite literally - for his most recent Irishmans Diary for the Irish Times. In Kevin's most recent column he used - as he is wont to do at times - quite strong language to criticise the current number of young women in Ireland, who are becoming pregnant to receive welfare cheques. Kevin's outraged the liberals of Ireland by referring to these women as 'MOB's' - an acronym for Mothers Of Bastards. Unfortunately I cannot link to the Irish Times site from here - it's a subscription...

THE Big Brother celebrities looked like ghoulish extras in a horror film yesterday - after their first boozy night in the house. Leading the field was unpopular racing pundit John McCririck, who was only too happy to show off his poor form as he stripped down to his white pants. And actress Brigitte Nielsen nearly came through on her promise to go naked in the house, with just a skimpy towel covering her assets in the sauna. All the contestants looked worse for wear as they wandered round the house bleary-eyed after Blazin' Squad rapper Kenzie's 19th birthday on Thursday...

Ireland is the best place to live in the world, according to a "quality of life" assessment by Economist magazine. The country's combination of increasing wealth and traditional values gives it the conditions most likely to make its people happy, the survey found. Ireland was followed by Switzerland, Norway and Luxembourg. All but one of the top 10 were European countries. The USA languished in 13th, while Britain was 29th - the lowest of the pre-expansion EU nations. 'TOP TEN COUNTRIES' 1 Ireland 2 Switzerland 3 Norway 4 Luxembourg 5 Sweden 6 Australia 7 Iceland 8 Italy 9 Denmark 10...

``Robert Shortt currenty a business correspondent at RTE, is to succeed the current incumbent Carole Coleman as the station's Washington Correspondent.'' I had heard briefly on Irish radio today that Carole Coleman, RTE's Washington Correspondent (RTE, btw is Ireland's national broadcaster) was being replaced. And I found the above snippet on indymedia. For Freepers unfamiliar with Ms. Coleman, she was the arrogant Irish reporter who interviewed President Bush and was completely obnoxious - repeatedly interrupting him. In fact her interview was so horrendous, a follow up interview with the First Lady was cancelled by the White House. I just thought...

As if to prove that the Dan Rather forged document scandal was not just an isolated incident, CBS News was ready to run another bogus story against President Bush on "60 Minutes" -- right before the election -- until an old NBC report surfaced, showing that the great amounts of high explosives supposedly "missing" from an ammunition dump in Iraq were not there when American troops arrived on the scene more than a year ago. Hundred of tons of these high explosives were known to have been at that ammunition dump before the war started but an NBC reporter who...

Pro-hunting demonstrators descended on Westminster yesterday, storming into the Commons chamber and causing chaotic scenes inside and outside Parliament in a foretaste of a countryside uprising against a hunting ban. After the worst breach of Commons security in living memory, armed police were placed at all entrances to the chamber - the first time MPs have had such a guard. Protestors in the Commons Enlargement Despite the disruption, the Government succeeded in pushing the Hunting Bill through all its stages in one sitting and it was sent to the Lords. Five demonstrators evaded recently-upgraded security to reach the floor of...

Germany's Economics minister says beer is so healthy it should be available on the country's health service. Minister Wolfgang Clement, 64, who can reportedly down a beer in 1.5 seconds, claims he can't get enough of the brew. "People should be able to get prescriptions for beer through the national health system," he said. The positive effects of beer were recently confirmed in a paper by Austrian professor Manfred Walzl of the Graz neurological clinic. According to Walzl, beer reduces the risk of stroke and heart attack, improves circulation, and even acts as an aphrodisiac - if not taken to...

Former President Clinton is presently undergoing quadruple bypass surgery in a New York hospital. While this is a standard procedure, it is not necessarily the simplest, nor the most risk free operation one can have. Rightly, get well wishes have poured in from across the globe, and this column expresses its sincere desire that Mr. Clinton will be restored to health as soon as possible. Some conservatives may be outraged by this extension of goodwill. After all, this amity has already been proven to be unrequited; if Democrat Underground is anything to go by, some on the left raised their...

TONY BLAIR’S staunch alliance with George W. Bush is sending ripples of resentment across the Atlantic from US Democrats, as well as causing waves of anguish within the Labour Party. The close links that existed between Labour and the Democrats in previous American presidential elections have been all but severed, with Downing Street and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office insisting that ministers keep their distance from John Kerry’s campaign. The Prime Minister’s advisers have always believed that Mr Bush is likely to be re-elected in November and are wary of sanctioning anything that would disturb their special relationship with Washington....

AGE chews up the courage of youth and discharges it in dribbles of weakness. Playwright Frank McGuinness, formerly brave consensus outsider with Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme (1985) has become timid consensus insider with his new adaptation of the Greek drama Hecuba. McGuinness told the Daily Telegraph last Monday that he saw comparisons between Agamemnon's declaration, "We can go home now - the war is over", with George W Bush's "ludicrous"'Mission accomplished' speech - "when it clearly was not accomplished," rebellious Frank pointed out. How fresh. How gutsy. But, really - how can he bear being...

George W Bush has received an 11 point bounce in mid-convention polling, according to Time magazine -- something that vapourises widely circulated media pundit claims that the absence of a bounce for John Kerry following the Democratic National Convention meant the electorate had already frozen in place. In a story filed on 03 September (US time), Time reports that, if the election for US president were held right now, 52 per cent of likely voters surveyed would vote for President George W Bush, 41 per cent would vote for Democratic nominee John Kerry, and 3 per cent would vote for...

THEY might not want to tell their children how they met. But the smoking ban has sparked a flurry of new romances as men and women have the dreaded weed to thank for bringing them together. Pub owners and dating experts across the country say the smoking ban has turned courting rituals upside down as hundreds of couples get to know each other over a smoke. Instead of trying to make light conversation in noisy bars, men and women say that stepping outside for a fag and chat has made getting to know the opposite sex much easier. The introduction...

Showjumper Cian O’Connor tonight won the first gold medal for the Irish team at the Athens Olympics. The 25-year-old rider, who lives in Rathoat, County Meath, took first place in the Showjumping final with a flawless final round on his horse Waterford Crystal. O’Connor, who had four faults in his first round, punched the air in delight after clearing the final fence. It was the first ever gold medal for the Irish equestrian team. Two other Irish showjumpers, Kevin Babington and Jessica Kuerten, finished in fifth and 19th places respectively. O’Connor said: “Normally I’m not stuck for words but this...

Ghalab al-Jazaari is the Iraqi police chief masterminding the siege of Najaf. It is an unenviable job by any standards. But, he tells Donald Macintyre, for him it's also very personal If nothing else, Ghalab al-Jazaari is a driven man. Seated on a plain sofa in his office at the city's main police station at nearly midnight, glancing repeatedly at the television screen showing an Iraqi station giving the bleak round-up of news on the insurgency, and unable to stifle the occasional yawn out of sheer dog tiredness, he turns every question back to what he sees as his mission:...

Yasser Arafat was reported on Thursday as having issued 'an unprecedented mea culpa admitting that he had made mistakes and promising to rectify them'. In a speech to the Palestinian parliament, which has been increasingly critical of him and his aides, Mr Arafat conceded that his leadership has not been blameless. 'There were wrong actions, by some institutions and some [officials] were irresponsible and misused their positions,' he said. 'There is nobody immune from mistakes, starting from me on down.' 'Starting from me on down' - We can accept the complete sincerity of at least that part of Mr Arafat's...

IT'S summertime and the livin' should be easy, but it's not. Never have more women been unhappy with their bodies. Never have they been more eaten up by a completely impossible ideal of perfection. It's got to the point where the handful of men who really love women's bodies have stopped paying them compliments because of the constant rebuffs. "I've never known women to be so negative about their bodies," said one experienced Casanova. "It's always the same. They say their breasts are too small, their bottoms are too big, their arms are too fat. I'm sick of it," he...

It might be the most dangerous place in the world, but that hasn't stopped a budding tour operator in Britain from launching package holidays to Iraq. Undeterred by kidnappings of foreigners, a raging insurgency and general lawlessness, former soldier Don Lucey is planning "a genteel tour" for around a dozen people at the end of September. Under Saddam Hussein's regime, Iraq was hardly on the tourist trail, but its ancient city of Babylon - fabled home of the Hanging Gardens - and the Muslim Holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala have drawn historians and religious visitors for centuries. A land...

With only a few more weeks to run before the Presidential debate the American campaign - especially the Presidential campaign - is now hotting up. As part of the hotting up process, inevitably a certain amount of partisan nonsense gets talked, and people should not normally be unduly disturbed by the nonsense. But a piece released by the Guardian service (London) and printed in the Irish Times on Friday - that is yesterday, by the time you get to read this - goes far beyond the normally acceptable levels allowed to even nonsense. The piece is headed: 'The GOP elephant...