Free Republic

In 1943 during WW2, an army Sgt., Ed Davis, was working in Iran near the Turkish border, in charge of locals hired by our army to build a road through Iran to the Soviet border, which would carry supplies to the Soviets instead of flying them in. In short, Ed did a tremendous favor for a little Kurdish village near Ararat. His workers were mostly Kurds and the chief of the village came to Ed and asked if he would like to see Noah's Ark. He said the summer on the mountain had been hottest in many years and the...

My father always said that anyone who lived through John F. Kennedy’s assassination remembers what they were doing at the precise moment the president was shot. This may well be true, but we also lucidly recall the circumstances of far lesser events such as the controversy surrounding the publication of The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray. The furor its conclusions caused is forever ingrained in my memory. At the time I was a psychology graduate student and found that most of my associates were familiar with the work but...

Because I am addicted to arguing, I sometimes stray from Free Republic to go lock horns with liberals in their haunts. I don't go to DU, they delete you the minute they sense your shadow casting its blue shade across their tofu. I go to IMDb, where everyone roams free. The Obamites hold forth endlessly about how Bush has crippled women's sexual freedom. Any restriction on abortion, you see, cripples women's sexual freedom. How can anyone get laid if you can't have RU-486 via drive-thru?Now, I'm not really particularly interested in the abortion issue. I used to care, and was...

- YES! To begin with, let's try and fully understand what Renaissance Florence actually has accomplished, apart from making tourists feel like this: "I was in a sort of ecstasy, from the idea of being in Florence, close to the great men whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty ... I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations ... Everything spoke so vividly to my soul. Ah, if I could only forget. I had palpitations of the heart, what in Berlin they call 'nerves.' Life was drained from me. I walked with the fear...

WARNING....PSYCHOLOGICAL NUDITY....ADULT LANGUAGE! The naked TRUTH delivered to independent minded, mature listeners by the winner of the Freedom of Speech Award. THE most exciting talkshow host in the country. Come and join us for live as it happens radio!

What else is there to do on Thursdays besides FReep and listen to TSN?! C'mon, eat, drink, breathe SAVAGE?

Dead issues - social valuesDigby AndersonThis article is a version of Mr. Anderson's chapter on Ridicule in "This Will Hurt: The Restoration of Virtue and Civic Order", just out from National Review Books.Necrophilia is the erotic attraction to corpses. There is no exclusivity here. The corpse may be old or young, male or female, human or animal, stranger or relative, one's own recently departed mother or a sheep taken at random from the abattoir. Various aspects of necrophilia are illegal and, insofar as it is mentioned at all, it is, to my limited knowledge, socially disapproved of. Or, if you...

Have you ever watched a highly rated film, as reviewed by the New York Times or some other pompous metro-sexual publication, only to find the movie an incredible piece of crap? I know I have. Why the disconnect? First of all, how many real men do you know who are hired as film reviewers by TV, magazines, or newspapers? The answer is probably… none. There aren’t any. At least not any I’ve ever seen or read. (My apologies to any real men out there who do review movies. You probably reside in ‘fly-over country’ and don’t get published to the...

What else is there to do on Thursdays besides FReep and listen to TSN?! C'mon, eat, drink, breathe SAVAGE?

It looks like Holly Madison is finally getting what she wants — Hugh Hefner all to herself and the winding down of his wild parties populated by girls wearing next to nothing. [Snip} After decades and decades of wild nights, we hear Hef is calling it a day and that Playboy Enterprises has decided that this party and the upcoming annual Halloween party will be the last that the magazine mogul personally throws as a means to cut costs. A rep from the men’s mag kept mum on the murmurs, saying "Who knows what will happen in a year from...

"For a long time, humans were pretty dumb, doing little but make 'the same very boring stone tools for almost 2 million years,' says Philipp Khaitovich of the Partner Institute for Computational Biology in Shanghai. Then, 150,000 years ago, our big brains suddenly got smart. We started innovating. We tried different materials. We started creating art and maybe even religion. To understand what caused the cognitive spurt, researchers examined chemical brain processes known to have changed in the past 200,000 years.

In what has been a strongly Republican county for years, a dramatic increase in Democratic registrations should be credited for the rise of Latino voters in the county, according to political experts. Increasing numbers of Latino Democratic voters combined with the launch of an aggressive "Viva Obama" campaign in the county have contributed to the changing tide, they said. There were 301,765 registered Republicans and 300,435 registered Democrats in the county, a difference of only 1,330 voters, as of July 28. The numbers reflect a rapid increase in Democratic voters just over the past few months, according to the San...

Henry is a man in deep existential angst. Luke Wilson plays the role brilliantly with a face, demeanor and carriage which is literally, as they say, “right out of central casting”. Later in the film we will learn that Henry has received a terminal medical diagnosis which sent him into the latest downturn. However his hopelessness and despair have been growing inside of him for years, draining away the life. He, like so many people, is a member of the walking wounded, dragging the pain of unresolved childhood hurt and trauma like a ball and chain behind him. The chip...

WARNING....PSYCHOLOGICAL NUDITY...ADULT LANGUAGE! The naked TRUTH delivered to independent minded, mature listeners by the winner of the Freedom of Speech Award. THE most exciting talkshow host in the country. Come and join us for live as it happens radio!

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war. 2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war. 3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength. 4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war. 5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites. 6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination. 7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N. 8....

Along with the Internet's "information overload" has come the vastly expanded ability of people to contact other people. Now, anyone can email anyone in the world. And with email signatures containing contact information, or by asking someone to call you, more and more people are getting your phone number and calling you.Email is very democratic; it doesn't distinguish between your mom, your employer, or a random press release sent from some organization 3,000 miles away. Sure there are ways to filter emails, but they all come to you in some capacity. There isn't yet a sophisticated way to filter out...

Under President Obama, Whites Need Not Apply by Patrick J. Buchanan By Patrick Buchanan “Will race be an issue in this campaign?” Hearing the cable talk-show host solemnly pose the question, I could not suppress a belly laugh. For the anchor was fearful that some white folks might reject Obama because he is African-American — even as a Rasmussen poll was reporting that Barack is beating McCain among black voters 94 to 1. What, other than race, explains how Barack rolled up 90-10 margins among black voters while running against Hillary Clinton, wife of the man novelist Toni Morrison dubbed...

Want to understand a foreign culture? Check out their cuisine. Few things are simple about international relations. The world's most studied state-to-state interactions are the result of decades, if not centuries, of political decision-making that labels some states allies and others enemies. But international policy analyst Chris Fair sees a simpler way to understand why some countries are the way they are: the food they eat. Her new book, "Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States: A Dinner Party Approach to International Relations," Fair argues that a nation's cuisine is the perfect lens to view what its...

The building of true civilization has always been exposed to various difficulties. But in the end, periods of unemployment, war and political turboil is nothing but small potatoes. Personally speaking, I'll turn 39 years old soon and one of the things that make me get out of bed and drive off to work each morning - a part from the luxury of driving a wonderful Volvo V70 to the place - is the magnificence of toiling in the company of certain younger Swedish work mates who I daily encounter there; people in their 20s who believe in hard work and...

Given the carbon-hog power consumption of a typical concert tour -- those long bus rides, dazzling light shows and thundering amp stacks flat-out guzzle the juice -- having Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee and hip-hop star Chris "Ludacris" Bridges front a new TV series all about eco-sensitivity might seem like a slap at dedicated tree-huggers. But both men are fathers of young children and eager to learn more about how they can reduce their own Gaia-defiling boot-prints. So here comes "Battleground Earth," a 10-episode series in which Lee and Ludacris travel the nation competing in reality-TV-style challenges intended to educate...

The most striking thing about the new Batman movie, now smashing the all-time box office records, is its emphasis on sado-masochism as the animating element in American culture these days. It must appeal to the many angry people in our land who want to hurt others, even while they themselves feel deserving of the grossest punishments. In other words, the picture reflects the extreme depravity of the current American sensibility. Seeing it all laid out there must be very validating to the emotionally confused audience, and hence pleasurable, in all its painfulness. The rich symbolism in this spectacle represents the...

Clive Crook's blog: I went to my first gun show recently - part of my ongoing remedial education in American cultural literacy, which my (American) wife has lately taken in hand - and I have been turning the experience over in my mind these past few days. As a Brit, of course, I was conditioned to expect that the first time I saw an unholstered pistol would be when a mugger stuck one in my face. That is how it works in a civilised country. So for me it was passing strange to see many hundreds of pistols - not...

What's wrong with science as religion Piercing a Communion wafer with a nail and throwing it in the garbage, as one crusading biologist recently did, does science no favors. By Karl Giberson Jul. 31, 2008 | PZ Myers is a true believer, a science crusader with the singled-minded enthusiasm of a televangelist. A biologist at the University of Minnesota at Morris and a columnist for Seed magazine, Myers has earned notoriety with his blog, Pharyngula, in which he reports on new developments in biology and indiscriminately excoriates those he views as hostile to science, a pantheon of straw men and...

Bush Calls for New Highway Tolls, More Private Funding of Roads By CHRISTOPHER CONKEY July 30, 2008; Page A3 The Bush administration unveiled a plan to impose new tolls on freeways and encourage more private investment to finance road and mass-transit projects, a move aimed at stirring debate as lawmakers prepare for a major overhaul of transportation policy.

The Coming Re-Becoming Everywhere you turn in this nation, you see a society primed for implosion. We seem unaware how extraordinary the American experience has been, especially in the last hundred years. By this, I don't mean that we are a better people than any other society -- these days, ordinary people in the USA make an effort to appear thuggish and act surly, as though we were a nation of convicts -- but for decade-upon-decade, we were very fortunate. Even the Great Depression of the 1930s may seem like a relatively peaceful and gentle "time out" from a frantic...

Hollywood's conservative underground 'Friends of Abe' group meets quietly EXCLUSIVE: A group of politically conservative and centrist Hollywood figures organized by actor Gary Sinise and others has been meeting quietly in restaurants and private homes, forming a loose-knit network of entertainers who share common beliefs like supporting U.S. troops and traditional American values.

What else is there to do on Tuesdays besides FReep and listen to TSN?! C'mon, eat, drink, breathe SAVAGE?Savage’s websiteLOTS of links to listen to the Savage radio show here!!!

Allow me to introduce someone who resides on MySpace from Chicago Il. You know, that social networking little place on the internet where children play and meet new friends……

What else is there to do on Fridays besides FReep and listen to TSN?! C'mon, eat, drink, breathe SAVAGE?Savage’s websiteLOTS of links to listen to the Savage radio show here!!!

Interview on the Sean Hannity Radio Show (Condoleezza Rice) (Excerpt) - SECRETARY RICE: ... First of all, this decision, this tactical decision to send Bill Burns one time to receive the reply that the Iranians are supposed to give to the offer that the United States, Russia, China, and three European states made – he’s going to go receive the reply, and he’s going to tell the Iranians, in no uncertain terms, that if they want to negotiate, the condition for doing that is to suspend verifiably their enrichment and reprocessing. So this is really to reinforce the policy that...

PROVIDENCE — Federal immigration agents and state police raided six Rhode Island courthouses yesterday, arresting dozens of people employed by two contractors hired by the state. The detainees are all believed to be maintenance workers. The raid led to a noisy demonstration by at least 100 people outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office at 200 Dyer St. last night. Police officers arrived as the crowd grew; at one point the police pushed a line of demonstrators across the parking lot. Some in the crowd were relatives of the arrestees. Others included clergy and at least one state representative, Grace...

Pauline Kael & trash cinema Will Smith's films are the endgame of a critic's take on Bonnie and Clyde Robert Fulford, National Post Published: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 Happy as a clam, rich as a minor Rockefeller, Will Smith turned up recently on a 60 Minutes update of an item from last December. He was there to promote his current movie, Hancock, but his main theme was his huge success and the way he's engineered it. He left me thinking sad and rueful thoughts about, of all people, the late Pauline Kael, the most passionate, stimulating and argument-starting critic in...

The anthropologist Margaret Mead once observed that in the 1930s, when she was busy remaking the idea of culture, the notion of cultural diversity was to be found only in the 'vocabulary of a small and technical group of professional anthropologists'. Today, everyone and everything seems to have its own culture. From anorexia to zydeco, the American philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah has observed, there is little that we don't talk about as the product of some group's culture. In this age of globalisation many people fret about Western culture taking over the world. But the greatest Western export is not...

FIFTEEN YEARS have passed since Foreign Affairs published Samuel Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations?" in its summer issue. It has subsequently become the most sought after article for reprints in the magazine's history. It, and the book by the same title minus the question mark, caused a storm among political scientists, many of whom simply refused to believe that, after the end of the Cold War, future conflicts would be over something so old fashioned. Only George Kennan's article on how to contain the USSR after World War II, bylined X, can compete with Huntington's in terms of influence. "The...

"We're talking about an emergency situation," said Richard Grounds, a speaker of the Euchee language and co-organizer of the meeting, held at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology. The youngest person to grow up speaking Euchee as a first language is now 78, said Grounds, a professor at the University of Tulsa. The rest are in their 80s... Languages seem to be going extinct like species of plants and animals. That comparison holds up pretty well, except that languages can occasionally be brought back to life. Growing up in Ohio, Daryl Baldwin said he was told that...

Hollywood’s Hero Deficit By James Bowman From the July/August 2008 Issue Filed under: Culture The movie industry no longer aspires to portray genuine heroism—even though that’s precisely what audiences want to see. A spate of movies about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terror came out last year, all of them hostile to U.S. involvement and all of them box-office flops. At the time there was a certain amount of soul-searching in the media as to why, when most Americans told pollsters they thought the Iraq war, at least, had been a mistake, they didn’t seem...