Free Republic

DENVER -- The "Tree Fairy" camouflages himself in foliage and said he is guided by the light of the moon. "My mother wants me to quit. My sister seems to want me to quit. They think I am a little crazy and are worried I might go to jail," said the Tree Fairy. The Tree Fairy wants to remain anonymous on his unique mission of goodwill. An elfish angel of sorts, the Tree Fairy finds joy in planting trees in the yards of unsuspecting neighbors. "I like nature. I wanted to live around nature. I really wanted to live in...

Woman Admits Dancing, Waving Wand, Throwing FlowersLAURENS COUNTY, S,C. -- A woman who says she had no connection to a funeral danced in front of the service, waved a wand over the casket, opened it and touched the deceased man and then threw the flowers from the casket at the family, deputies said. Laurens County deputies responded to reports of a disturbance at the Church of God in Gray Court on Tuesday. Those attending the funeral said that the woman had joined the procession. They said once they were seated inside the church, the woman then danced in front of...

Absinthe Uncorked: The 'Green Fairy' Was Boozy -- But Not Psychedelic ScienceDaily (May 1, 2008) — A new study may end the century-old controversy over what ingredient in absinthe caused the exotic green aperitif's supposed mind-altering effects and toxic side-effects when consumed to excess. In the most comprehensive analysis of old bottles of original absinthe -- once quaffed by the likes of van Gogh, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso to enhance their creativity -- a team of scientists from Europe and the United States have concluded the culprit was plain and simple: A high alcohol content, rather than thujone, the compound...

Bruce Dickson a contestant on American Idol Dallas, Jan 24, 2008 / 02:07 am (CNA).- A 19-year-old contestant for the “American Idol” singing competition faced scrutiny from judges and celebrity commentators after revealing he is a virgin who has never kissed a girl, Cybercast News Service reports.Bruce Dickson, a show contestant from Bostrop, Texas, at the American Idol Dallas auditions was asked to share something interesting about himself.   He told the judges he had never kissed a girl."What?" Randy Jackson asked. "On purpose?" “On purpose," Dickson said. "On my wedding day, that will be my first kiss." Jackson's advice to...

(IsraelNN.com) A two-installment article by Saudi Arabian columnist Yousef Nasser Al-Sweidan calls upon the Arab states to give up the efforts to arrange the transfer of the families of refugees from the Israeli War of Independence into the Jewish State. Such a population transfer would violate Israeli sovereignty or lead to anarchy in the Palestinian Authority, according to the author. Rather, Al-Sweidan writes, the Arab states hosting the refugee families have the obligation to absorb them. The "right of return" is "nonsense and deceit." - Al-Sweidan Al-Sweidan's model for such immigrant absorption, he notes, is Israel. The columns, recently made...

A Fairy Tale....??? What Happened? The awful truth of it. Tax his land, Tax his bed, Tax the table At which he's fed. Tax his tractor, Tax his mule, Teach him taxes Are the rule. Tax his cow, Tax his goat, Tax his pants, Tax his coat. Tax his ties, Tax his shirt, Tax his work, Tax his dirt. Tax his tobacco, Tax his drink, Tax him if he Tries to think. Tax his cigars, Tax his beers, If he cries, then Tax his tears. Tax his car, Tax his gas, Find other ways To tax his ass Tax all...

MIAMI Senator John Kerry is in Florida today, helping a Democratic hopeful in the district where the Republican Senator abruptly resigned. Representative Mark Foley was considered a shoo-in for re-election -- until it was revealed he had exchanged raunchy E-mails with a teenage page. Senator Kerry is headlining a fundraiser for Tim Mahoney, who may now have a better shot at winning. Kerry says the weekend is not about Foley's resignation. He says the people in Florida will make their own decision about that. Instead, Kerry says, the visit is about mustering support for state Democrats. Nationwide, the party needs...

Kerry Accuses White House of Intolerance By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press Writer 15 minutes ago Sen. John Kerry accused the Bush administration on Saturday of stirring up a "spirit of intolerance" to suppress dissent over the war in Iraq. Kerry said the Bush administration is targeting opponents of the Iraq war in much the same way he was attacked for protesting failed policies in Vietnam in the 1970s. "Dismissing dissent is not only wrong but dangerous when America's leadership is unwilling to admit mistakes, unwilling to engage in honest discussion and unwilling to hold itself accountable for the consequences of...

Is This Dodge 'Fairy' Commercial Actually Hate Speech in Disguise? Bod Garfield's Ad Review: Watch the Video By Bob Garfield Published: April 17, 2006 Faggot. Queer. Fairy. These are synonyms, epithets one and all disparaging gays -- or, more often, heterosexual men deemed insufficiently masculine. Let's call that Fact No. 1. The 'Fairy' spot was created for Dodge by BBDO, Detroit. ALSO: Comment on this review in the 'Your Opinion' section below. Macho brand Fact No. 2: Dodge is marketing its new Caliber subcompact as a tough little car, as opposed to sissy little Civics, Corollas and the like. This...

<p>Free Republic made its debut in September, 1996, and the forum was added in early 1997.   Over 100,000 people have registered for posting privileges on Free Republic, and the forum is read daily by tens of thousands of concerned citizens and patriots from all around the country and the world.</p>

Penguins lose 'fairy' tag THEME park bosses have re-named their colony of fairy penguins amid fears they could upset the gay community. Managers at Sea World, on the Gold Coast, are now calling the species "little penguins" in case associations with the word "fairy" offend visitors to the park. "We didn't have any complaints about the name of the penguins, but someone thought they could be seen as offensive so we decided to change it to little penguin instead," a Sea World spokeswoman said. "We just didn't want to upset the gay community. The new name is more politically correct."...

Media darling stunned; public reaction mixed JIM MORRILL jmorrill@charlotteobserver.com Friday was not a normal day for Harry Taylor. He did two national TV interviews. His phone rang all day. E-mails flooded his inbox. People he never met called him a hero and a patriot. He became a darling of Internet blogs, including one called simply: thankyouharrytaylor.org. "It's like I've got 10,000 butterflies jumping up and down in my stomach," he said in an afternoon interview. "It's been that way for 27 hours now." A day before, President Bush called on Taylor during a question session after a speech at Central...

He calls it "The Confession." Former Gov. James E. McGreevey's tell-all memoir about his secret life as a closeted gay politician is scheduled for release Sept. 19...........will span the 48-year-old McGreevey's life......to his rise and fall in politics and the aftermath of his nationally televised "I am a gay American" speech".......... The book will include details about McGreevey's gay sex life and his efforts to keep his homosexuality hidden through two marriages and a political career that took him from Woodbridge Town Hall to the Statehouse.....in August 2004 with his televised confession that he'd had an adulterous affair with a...

How to address a bitter, war-torn but still somehow giddy and deeply horny nation. My fellow Americans, we're not as royally screwed as everything Bush has done during his miserable term in office would have you believe.

What do the bitter neocon nominee and the amazing Oscar-bound film have in common? There is this theory, more of a truism really, tossed about like a fuzzy beach ball by the gurus and the masters and the mystics since Jesus was but a lint ball of possibility in the Great Belly Button of Time. . . .

I am a Gay Republican but I almost never chime in on political issues. I believe in small government, which the Bush administration has not been good at, as well as low taxes and the free market. I don't believe in manmade global warming and I think environmental activism is mostly a cover for people who want to make more rules to control our lives. Social issues don't get me very excited and I know I should be more grateful to my gay forefathers for all their sacrifices, but I've never encountered homophobia in my entire life so gay rights...

In many ways, the U.S. is now just as inhumane and brutal as any Third World regime. Oh well? "We do not torture." Remember it, write it in red crayon on the bathroom wall, tattoo it onto your acid tongue because those very words rang throughout the land like a bleak bell, like a low scream in the night, like a cheese grater rubbing against the teeth of common sense when Dubya mumbled them during a speech not long ago, and it was, at once, hilarious and nauseating and it took all the self-control in the world for everyone in...

The astonishing collapse of the Bumbling One surely means healthy change is imminent, right? Here's the good news: It really can't get much worse. We cannot afford any more wars. The environment has been sold to the bone. The national spirit has been beaten like an Alaskan baby seal and the GOP has worked our last nerve, passed through the karmic blood-brain barrier, reached saturation to the point where even moderate Repubs and gobs of intelligent Christians are finally saying, Oh my God, what have we done, and how did it all go so wrong, and how much Prozac and...

Why Don't Americans Care? Do you know who Halliburton is? Dick Cheney? How about Karl Rove? Alas, most Americans don't Let's be honest. Percentage-wise, few people in America really give much of a crap about what's going on in the hallowed halls of politics and power. This is what we in the media and maybe you in the media-consuming audience tend to forget far too easily: This country is simply jam-packed with millions of people who have no time for, or interest in, politics, or media, or environmental policy, or education, or global issues, or which presidential candidate lied his...

IT MAKES perfect sense to a person marooned in a convention city suffused with phony symbolism that the first famous advance man in politics worked for a dictator, albeit a somewhat enlightened one. In the 18th century, Catherine the Great mixed a preference for modernity with a ruthless hold on power. Artifice was as important to the ruler as it was to the ruled, illusions being central to the totalitarian mind-set. Enter Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin. On a journey through the Ukraine and Crimea -- what might be called a campaign swing today -- it was Potemkin's precedent-setting duty to...

I've pulled an earlier post from today, because I could not verify some supporting statements from an earlier Reuters report. Evidently some words may have "disappeared" from a report they made regarding protesters attacking Republican Convention Delegates, in particular a mention of an attack on African American Delegates. I have no saved copy, so until I can verify the report I'll pull it. I have some experience with the Democrat party and the hate they can heap upon those who leave the fold, and I intend to expose them for what they are. But unlike the Old Media, those of...

No one in his/her right mind truly believed that San Francisco's landmark same-sex marriages would stand the test of the scowling California Supreme Court or the white-hot glare of the rabid homophobic war-drunk BushCo Right. It was almost no contest, a leather-clad dove versus an archaic, oily tank from the word go -- or, rather, from the words "I do."

BOSTON - John Kerry bounced the ceremonial first pitch during last night's Red Sox-Yankees game at Fenway Park, but he said he was just going easy on the National Guard soldier and Iraq war veteran standing in as catcher. "I held back," Mr. Kerry told reporters early this morning, on the plane ride after the game. "He was very nervous. I tried to lob it gently."

In his column today, Robert Novak salutes the only man who could put Bush-bashing Ron Reagan in his place. "Nobody knew how to respond in a time of national mourning. Nobody, that is, except William F. Buckley Jr.," Novak writes. Among the shots junior Reagan fired at the president: that his father never wore "his faith on his sleeve," that his "father did not know George W. Bush from Adam," that his "father was a man - that's the difference between him and Bush." And: "This is their war. If they can't stand on their own two feet, they're...

RON REAGAN TO ADDRESS DNC Making the rounds today is a story hot off the presses that Ron Reagan, Jr. is going to address the Democratic National Convention this month. You see, Ron is a big-time leftist, and a liberal Democrat. This should come as no surprise to anyone, except of course, the media. Apparently Ron is going to speak about stem cell research. You see, the Bush administration is opposed to federal funding of stem cell research, which some say could one day help Alzheimer's patients like Ron Reagan's father. But the left and the media have done a...

Republicans were dismayed to hear Ron Reagan, Jr., deliver what sounded like a rebuke to President Bush during a final tribute before his father was buried on Friday. Referring to his dad as "a deeply, unabashedly religious man," the Reagan son added, "But he never made the mistake the fatal mistake of so many politicians - wearing his faith on his sleeve to gain political advantage. . . " "He accepted [his faith] as a responsibility, not a mandate," noted the presidential son. "And there is a profound difference." Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said there was no doubt the comments...

'Fairy circles' of Africa baffle scientists (Filed: 10/05/2004) Twenty-five years of research fail to find the cause of a mysterious natural phenomenon, reports Tim Butcher at Wolwedans Camp One of Africa's most mysterious natural phenomena still cannot be explained despite 25 years of research, scientists admitted yesterday. Rings known as "fairy circles" that pockmark vast areas of desert in Namibia and South Africa have baffled botanists from the University of Pretoria and the Polytechnic of Namibia. They have ruled out termite activity, poisoning from toxic indigenous plants, contamination from radioactive minerals and even ostrich dust baths as possible causes. "At...

Saddam the great dictator of fairy tales (Filed: 17/12/2003) Iraq's tyrant spent weeks before the war writing a novel about underground resistance, reports Jack Fairweather Saddam Hussein spent the final weeks before the war writing a novel predicting that he would lead an underground resistance movement to victory over the Americans, rather than planning the defence of his regime. Saddam's propaganda image As the war began and Saddam went into hiding 40,000 copies of Be Gone Demons! were rolling off the presses. Most were destroyed by bombing and looting but the Telegraph has obtained one of the few remaining copies...

Is it Just me or are most Americans Gay .. and just too afraid to admit it.... Hell, I'm Gay .. and I'm American ..... ! We Won The War ... but did we get Laid ?.. Hell No ... ll them Sandy Beaches and we got nothing

BLACK FORK RIVER, North Slope of the Uinta Mountains -- To get to the Rainbow Family gathering, revelers will have to put on their walking shoes. Make that boots -- it's awfully muddy at 9,000 feet. A special incident team for the U.S. Forest Service closed a spur off the North Slope Road here Thursday morning after a melee in which Forest Service officers and Rainbow members suffered minor injuries. Early on Thursday afternoon, Forest Service incident Commander Malcolm Jowers said the 2.5-mile road would be closed until further notice. That left Rainbow Family members hoofing it in to various...