Free Republic

ENERGY POLICY: "If every American... would just inflate their tires... we wouldn't need any more drilling... and I wouldn't have to answer these dumb@ss questions..." SOCIAL SECURITY POLICY: "If every American... would just save $100 per week... we wouldn't need any more Social Security... and I wouldn't have to answer these dumb@ss questions..." LABOR POLICY: "If every American... would just join a union... and pay the d@mn dues... so I could plan on being re-elected in four years... I wouldn't have to answer these dumb@ss questions..." MEDICAL CARE FOR EVERY AMEREICAN POLICY: "If every American... would just eat healthy... and...

For some sailors on the USS North Carolina, Wilmington's red-carpet treatment stopped at the doors of downtown's bars. In April, crew members from the Navy's newest nuclear attack submarine visited Wilmington on a goodwill trip ahead of the vessel's historic commissioning at the state port. But when Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo talked with them about their stay, he winced at what he heard. Sailors told him they'd been turned away from downtown bars for being in the military. "It was upsetting to me," Saffo said. "I never knew we had that type of issue with military personnel." But a broader...

SEOUL, KOREA - SOUTH Korean teenagers see the United States as a greater threat to national security than North Korea, and a majority do not know that the North started the 1950-53 war, surveys published on Tuesday showed. The Ministry of Public Administration and Security surveyed 1,016 middle and high school students to mark Wednesday's 58th anniversary of the North's invasion, local newspapers reported. Fewer than half knew the war began in 1950 and just 48.7 per cent said the communist North started it. Others blamed Japan (13.5 per cent), the United States (13.4), Russia (11), China (3.4) and South...

Will our kids be dumb and broke? Publik Skools, welfare and Sosha Security? YES!

"OBAMA: On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in...in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong." "RUSH: Now, a lot of people say, "Rush, don't harp on this. He's just trying to be nice." Look, I wouldn't harp on it if this wasn't gaffe number one million. I don't think he knows what Memorial Day is. We honor the dead who have served the country; they can't possibly be anywhere where Obama sees them. (interruption) Yes! What do you mean...? Do...

A Dallas man died early Wednesday morning when he accidentally jumped to his death off an overpass following a traffic accident, police said. Chalk Hill Road and West Davis Street Richard Mauricio Jr., 19, crashed into another car at Chalk Hill Road and West Davis Street around 2:30 a.m., said Dallas police Senior Cpl. Jerry Monreal. The other driver told police that Mr. Mauricio then got out of the car and ran west on Davis Street. He jumped over a railing and plummeted to his death. Senior Cpl. Monreal said it’s hard to tell that there is such a drop...

MAY 21--Meet Alex Phillips. The Wisconsin teenager is facing felony child pornography charges for allegedly posting naked photos of his 16-year-old ex-girlfriend on his MySpace page. When contacted by police about the two images, Phillips, 17, balked at removing the pictures of the girl. Warned that he could face jail for publishing images of the minor, Phillips told an investigator, "F#@! that, I am keeping them up," according to a criminal complaint filed yesterday in Lacrosse County Circuit Court. Phillips, pictured in the below mug shot, told cops that he posted the photos last week "because he was venting." The...

Quote: "It is wonderful to be back in Oregon," Obama said. "Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it."

McALLEN - A woman accused of robbing two banks this month gave investigators a vital clue to her identity Monday, when she passed a threatening note to a teller with her name and address on the back. Investigators believe Maria Garcia, 33, scrawled the hold-up message on the back of a completed food stamp application moments before entering the Capital One Bank branch in downtown McAllen and making off with an undisclosed amount of cash. Officers arrested her less than two hours later by tracking her to the address on the form. They also linked her to a similar robbery...

KANAWHA COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- Most students are excited to get their high school diploma, but a former student at Sissonville High is suing the Kanawha County School Board for letting him graduate. Now the state Supreme Court has decided to hear the case. Thomas Sturm's attorney says Sturm shouldn't have graduated because he still reads on a third grade level. The school board's attorneys say Sturm had an individualized education plan, and neither he nor his parents filed any complaints while he was in school. “IEPs are developed and formulated and put in place anytime the parent would have...

Ugly Chelsea? "I made a very unfortunate and insensitive remark. It was the wrong thing to do, and I have no excuse for it.'' -- Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, June 11, 1998 ___________________________________ McCain was apologizing for telling a Republican fund-raiser that Chelsea Clinton was "so ugly'' because "she's the child of Janet Reno and Hillary Clinton.'' According to "My Bad," he later sent a note to the Clintons.

February 21, 2008 Dougherty County -- A Dougherty County woman is arrested for running over her cousin with a car-- twice. Investigators say 24-year-old Vondrameke Polk and Lazzora McCoy were fighting at a relative's house on Pinson Road. That's when McCoy chased Polk out of the house with a knife. Police say McCoy jumped on the hood of Polk's car and broke the windshield, and when she fell off, Polk ran over her leg. Then, she then backed up and ran over it again. Polk is charged with aggravated assaulted and aggravated battery. McCoy is in fair condition with a...

Two off-duty police officers, one from Duluth and the other from Fulton County, wounded each other during an exchange of gunfire Friday afternoon in a quiet north Gwinnett County suburb. Fulton officer Paul Phillips, 37, and Duluth officer Jay Daily, 42, were recovering from non-life-threatening injuries Friday evening at Gwinnett Medical Center, said Cpl. Illana Spellman, spokeswoman for the Gwinnett County Police Department. aily, a member of the Duluth force for five years, was charged with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer. "It's just baffling to us why it occurred," Duluth Police Chief Randy Belcher said. "It's an embarrassment...

LONDON (Reuters) - Question: What was Gandhi's first name? Contestant's answer: Goosey Goosey. Warning to all those know-alls who shout at the television screen when contestants offer dumb answers to blindingly obvious questions -- one day that could be you. From regional radio shows to "Who Wants To be a Millionaire?" and "University Challenge," people make fools of themselves -- as internet site www.jumpingjacksbar.com found in collating some of the worst howlers. Here are leading contenders for the "Dumb Down" gold medal: Presenter: What happened in Dallas on November 22,1963? Contestant: I don't know, I wasn't watching it then Presenter:...

A training manual for Canadian diplomats lists the United States and Israel as countries where prisoners are at risk of being tortured, citing U.S. interrogation techniques such as stripping prisoners, blindfolding and sleep deprivation. The Canadian Foreign Affairs Department document, released Friday, singled out the U.S. detention center at Guantánamo Bay -- where a Canadian citizen is held. Also on the list are Afghanistan, China, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Syria as places where inmates could face torture. The listing drew a sharp response from the United States, a key NATO ally and trading partner, which asked to removed...

KOKOMO, Ind. — Oh, shoot! A man accidentally shot himself in the groin as he was robbing a convenience store Tuesday, police said. A clerk told police a man carrying a semiautomatic handgun entered the Village Pantry demanding cash and a pack of cigarettes. The clerk put the cash in a bag and as she turned to get the cigarettes, she heard the gun discharge. Police say surveillance video shows the man shooting himself as he placed the gun in the waistband of his pants. The clerk wasn't injured. A short time later, police found 25-year-old Derrick Kosch at a...

Police in South Africa's capital, Pretoria, claim to have to caught the "dumbest criminal" this year. The man walked into a station to report that he had been held up at gunpoint by a gang who had stolen his mobile phone. But when the detective phoned the number of the phone reportedly stolen, it rang in the complainant's pocket. "The shock left him speechless for a few minutes," said police spokesman Eugene Opperman, adding that the man, 25, was then arrested for perjury. The police issued a statement entitled "Dumbest criminal?" with details of the weekend incident, South Africa's Star...

Dumb Quotes from the 2008 Democrat Presidential Candidates Hillary Clinton: "We are going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." "God bless the America we are trying to create." "I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president." Barack Obama: "In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died -- an entire town destroyed." --on a Kansas tornado that killed 12 people Joe Biden: "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a...

It is tempting to assert that adult Californians are, generally speaking, morons. Granted, that assertion, if it were to be made in this space, would come from an adult Californian who clearly has more than a casual relationship with moronity. But geez, people, you're not even trying. At least it looks that way from ... the latest survey by the folks over at the Public Policy Institute of California. The survey probed into Californians' knowledge of, and feelings about, state fiscal and governmental/political issues. What it found was a thick, hard layer of huh?: • Only three in 10 could...

I can't believe this got by everybody. What a travesty. I thought Republicans were the dumb ones!

Japan asks U.S. for more data on F-22 fighter WASHINGTON, May 1 (Reuters) - Japanese Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma has asked U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates for more information about the F-22 fighter jet built by Lockheed Martin Corp. , a senior Japanese official said on Tuesday. U.S. law currently bans any exports of the F-22 Raptor, but some lawmakers and defense officials say there is growing interest in making it possible to export a modified version of the advanced fighter to close allies such as Japan. "If we make the F-22 a candidate, we need full information on this...

An owner of an exotic animal farm has died after being kicked and then sat on by a camel. Cathie Ake and the 4-year-old camel were being filmed by a local television station on Sunday when the camel kicked her and then sat down during a break in filming. The station was doing a story on Mini-Akers Exotic Animals, the 15-acre farm Ake owned with her husband. Cathie Ake's husband, Donnie Ake, said he would find a new home for Polo, the camel, The News Herald of Panama City reported Tuesday. He believes the 1,800-pound animal was agitated by mating...

HOBOKEN, N.J. - He's a veteran of long-distance sailing voyages in all kinds of weather. She's never sailed outside the Hudson River. But together, 55-year-old Reid Stowe and his 23-year-old girlfriend, Soanya Ahmad, are embarking on a voyage that they intend to take them three times around the globe and last 1,000 days and nights — nonstop, with no port calls for supplies or a walk on solid ground. They were ready to set sail Saturday aboard his 70-foot, two-masted schooner, named the Schooner Anne, from a Hudson River marina in North Hoboken. "This will be my first time sailing...

CLEVELAND -- Cleveland Cavaliers center Scot Pollard looked into the camera during a recent game and said, "Hey kids, do drugs."

Helen Thomas remains front row at White House Briefing Room; CNN up, FOX NEWS row two Fri Mar 16 2007 22:52:56 ET TO: White House Correspondents' Association RE: White House Briefing Room DATE: March 16, 2007 The White House Correspondents' Association met today to review plans for the renovated West Wing Briefing Room and the seating assignments. The new briefing room will consist of 49 seats: 7 rows and 7 seats per row. In the old briefing room, we had 8 rows and 6 seats per row. This new configuration required us to make several adjustments to the seating arrangement,...

MOUNT HOOD, Oregon (CNN) -- Search-and-rescue coordinators assembled Sunday in near white-out conditions on Mount Hood in Oregon in an attempt to find eight climbers -- three of whom had fallen from a ledge, the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office said in a written statement. The accident occurred at an altitude of more than 8,300 feet in the area of Illumination Saddle, said the office, which got news of the missing climbers at noon (3 p.m. ET). None of the three climbers who fell can be seen and none has communicated with the other five members of the party, who were...

Complaints received by a British vacation business: "No one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled..." "My fiance and I booked a twin-bedded room and we were placed in a double-bedded room. We now hold you responsible for the fact I find myself pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the rooms that we booked..." "The brochure stated: 'No hairdressers at the accommodation'. We're trainee hairdressers, will we be OK staying here..?" "It took us nine hours to fly to Jamaica from England - it only took the Americans...

On the day that the latest report on global warming was released, I went out and bought a light bulb. OK, an environmentally friendly, compact fluorescent light bulb. *snip* By every measure, the U N 's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change raises the level of alarm. The fact of global warming is "unequivocal." The certainty of the human role is now somewhere over 90 percent. Which is about as certain as scientists ever get. I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on...

Boy gets frostbite from Super Bowl run 'A teenager who wanted to continue the family tradition of running around the garden barefoot during halftime of the Super Bowl game has learned a painful lesson.' A teenager who wanted to continue the family tradition of running around the garden barefoot during halftime of the Super Bowl game has learned a painful lesson.It was 17 below zero at halftime Sunday in this city about 30 miles northwest of Minneapolis, and D.J. Brown's dad said it was too cold to continue the tradition. He was treated for second-degree frostbite on both feet at...

SEN. BIDEN SHOCK INTERVIEW: OBAMA FIRST 'CLEAN' BLACK IN MAINSTREAM... 'I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy'...

Three thieves who allegedly stole 14 global positioning system devices didn't get away with their crime for long. The devices led police right to their home. Town officials said the thieves didn't even know what they had: they thought the GPS devices were cell phones, which they planned to sell. According to Suffolk County police, the GPS devices were stolen Monday night from the Town of Babylon Public Works garage in Lindenhurst. The town immediately tapped its GPS system, and it showed that one of the devices was inside a house. Police said that when they arrived there, Kurt Husfeldt,...

WASHINGTON --In a published report, the Lovenstein Institute of Scranton, Pennsylvania has detailed findings of a four month study of the intelligence quotient of President George W. Bush. Since 1973, the Lovenstein Institute has published its research to the education community on each new president, which includes the famous "IQ" report among others. According to statements in the report, there have been twelve presidents over the past 60 years, from F. D. Roosevelt to G. W. Bush who were all rated based on scholarly achievements, writings that they alone produced without aid of staff, their ability to speak with clarity,...

The "dirty dozen" list of "America's Most Bizarre and Politically Correct College Courses" is out — and Los Angeles-area institutions of higher learning have walked away with one-fourth of the ranked honors (or dishonors). Occidental College, an 1,800-student liberal arts school in Eagle Rock, is the only college on the list to collect not one but two citations for excellence at offering trendy theories of gender, skin color and white-male oppression at the expense of actual academic content. UCLA didn't fare badly either, with one citation. And believe me, the competition was stiff. The Southern California colleges were competing against...

A 21-year-old German tourist who wanted to visit his girlfriend in the Australian metropolis Sydney landed 13,000 kilometers (8,077 miles) away near Sidney, Montana, after mistyping his destination on a flight booking Web site. Dressed for the Australian summer in T-shirt and shorts, Tobi Gutt left Germany on Saturday for a four-week holiday. Instead of arriving "down under", Gutt found himself on a different continent and bound for the chilly state of Montana. "I did wonder but I didn't want to say anything," Gutt told the Bild newspaper. "I thought to myself, you can fly to Australia via the United...

At PlayOnLyrics we like to play around with misheard lyrics. Occasionally, however, you wish you had misheard a lyric, or can’t believe what you just heard. Back in the day, one time Tonight Show host and hack musician Steve Allen used to read out lyrics from popular songs just to make fun of young musicians. That used to bug us. Taking lyrics out of context can be a distasteful and irrelevant exercise by the smug and untalented. After all, “The Doo Ron Ron� is a great song about nothing. But, sometimes lyrics are just so bad you just have to...

Billions of Home Ownership Wealth to be Lost by Minority Americans; Chart Contains Detailed MSA-Specific Projections of Home Foreclosure Impacts WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- A new Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) study reveals that 2.2 million American households will lose their homes and as much as $164 billion due to foreclosures in the subprime mortgage market. Titled, "Losing Ground: Foreclosures in the Subprime Market and Their Cost to Homeowners," the CRL study is the first comprehensive, nationwide review of millions of subprime mortgages originated from 1998 through the third quarter of 2006. CRL's research suggests that risky lending practices...

Video highlights our current 'immigration' situations. :<)

LAKELAND -- Deputy Billy Osborne heard the man's cries for help but couldn't see him through the thick brush and pre-dawn darkness. " 'I have two broken arms, and an alligator's got me pinned. I can't move. Please help me,' " the Polk County deputy sheriff recalled the man saying at a news conference Wednesday. As Osborne listened, he followed the pleading voice through more than 20 yards of weeds in Lake Parker's murky, chest-deep water about 4 a.m. Then he saw them: a naked man slumped over, caught in the jaws of a huge alligator amid thick cattails in...

Prime minister calls on Authority to choose 'new path' of negotiations, saying Israel ready to give Palestinians a state, release prisoners and evacuate many territories Anat Bereshkovsky Published: 11.27.06, 13:48 The government met on Sunday at Kibbutz Sde Boker to commemorate the passing away of Israel's founder and first prime minister David Ben-Gurion 33 years ago. During the ceremony Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made a dramatic appeal to the Palestinians, urging them to choose a 'new path' --- a path of negotiations with Israel. Olmert, who until recently called for a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from West Bank territories, or 'realignment'...

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., won a leadership post Tuesday as Senate Democrats organized their new majority following last week's elections. Murray, who is in her third term, was named secretary of the Democratic caucus, replacing Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., who is stepping down to lead the Senate Democratic Steering Committee. The secretary's job is the third-ranking post in the Senate hierarchy, behind Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin, D-Ill. "It is tremendous honor to join this leadership team," Murray said at a Capitol news conference. She pledged to work to help young people go...

The problem in selecting the most ridiculous, poorly crafted, or just plain bizarre political Web sites is an embarrassment of riches: There are so many worthy contenders. But whatever the criteria, the Web site of Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who's running for re-election, would qualify. Anyone thinking of putting up a Web site that's devoid of actual content should skip the project instead on grounds of sheer embarrassment. (We took the accompanying screen snapshot last week. This week, the Web site has changed to become even less useful.)

When Christine Drake worked as a Starbucks barista, the Seattle woman with psychiatric disabilities said it was the first time in her life that she "felt a sense of accomplishment." But after two years on the job, a new manager at the Starbucks store at 425 Queen Anne Ave. N. in Seattle allegedly discriminated against Drake, decreased her hours and berated her in front of customers, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Lisa Cox, an EEOC lawyer, said the world's largest coffee retailer ignored Drake's requests for help and violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by not accommodating...

"How to reach 100,000 people for less than a dollar"

SEATTLE - A woman wounded in last month's deadly shooting rampage at Seattle's Jewish Federation offices says she hopes the attack helps the public and lawmakers see a need for tighter gun control laws. "How and why the murderer who invaded my workplace a couple of weeks ago was able to legally acquire two semiautomatic weapons in our state is still a very disturbing mystery to me," Dayna Klein, 37, said Thursday, seated next to her husband at a news conference in a downtown hotel. Klein said she met with former President Bill Clinton last week while in New York,...

CHICAGO — Cook County prosecutors say a 29-year-old man traveling with his mother desperately didn't want her to know he'd packed a sexual aid for their trip to Turkey. So he told security it was a bomb, officials said. Madin Azad Amin, 29, of Skokie, was stopped Aug. 16 at O'Hare International Airport after guards found an object in his baggage that resembled a grenade, prosecutors said. When officers asked him to identify it, Amin said it was a bomb, said Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Lorraine Scaduto. He later told officials he'd lied about the item because his mother...

Bored and need a laugh? Post any dumb comments you've made or heard here on this thread. I'll start... 1. "Tuna smells like dead fish" --Me 2. "Yeah, I'll go to a sleepover, as long as it's at night" --my sister, several years ago 3. Anything a liberal has ever said 4. "Oh, you need equations to do this math problem?!" --someone in my sophomore algebra 2 class, two years ago 5. "Is an imaginary number one like 'eleventy one'?" --someone else in my Algebra 2 class 6. "If AM is amplitude modulation and FM is frequency modulation, what does...

BELLEVUE, Wash. -- Police in this Seattle suburb didn't have to go far to arrest a man for investigation of car prowling. He was found sleeping in a special weapons and tactics van. Officer Greg Grannis said a municipal worker reported someone breaking into cars, including his own, shortly before midnight Monday. Officers quickly found burglarized cars, but couldn't determine who might be responsible - until about 4:50 a.m., when two SWAT team members came to the police vehicle maintenance yard to get their van and found a 25-year-old transient asleep in the back, Grannis said. The man, whose his...

Christine Axsmith, a software contractor for the CIA, considered her blog a success within the select circle of people who could actually access it. Only people with top-secret security clearances could read her musings, which were posted on Intelink, the intelligence community's classified intranet. Writing as Covert Communications, CC for short, she opined in her online journal on such national security conundrums as stagflation, the war of ideas in the Middle East and -- in her most popular post -- bad food in the CIA cafeteria. Christine Axsmith, with her husband, Justin Benedict, says she was fired by BAE Systems...

"No matter how brave our soldiers are, no matter how valiant, no matter what their caring," said Senator John Kerry, "Our soldiers cannot bring democracy to Iraq at the barrel of a gun." Opposition Democrats used President George W. Bush's secret visit to Iraq as an opportunity to renew their calls for speedy end to America's military involvement there. (AFP/Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla)

TOKYO (Reuters) - A would-be Japanese bank robber asked staff how he should carry out the crime before meekly obeying a request to leave and then accidentally stabbing himself in the leg with a knife he was carrying. The 58-year-old unemployed man went into a branch of the Saitama Resona Bank in the town of Kumagaya, north of Tokyo, on Wednesday, intending to rob it, a police spokesman said. According to local media reports the man first asked a bank teller, "Any idea how you rob a bank?" The teller alerted another member of staff, who asked the man to...