Free Republic

Well, after about a million debates, and political beauty pagents, I still am not going head-over-heels for any candidate. I play fantasy sports and thought, why not fantasy politics? Pick your own team! Only one rule (more of a guideline than a rule): the people on the team must still be alive (other wise it would be all Ronaldus Magnus!). This will limit the number of cartoon characters, but this is the steep price of fun. My shortlist are all commentators: Pres - el Rushbo; VP - Ann Coulter ( I liked them on 1/2 hour news hour); Sec State...

Mark Penn, pollster for the Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) presidential campaign, predicted that a quarter of Republican women would defect from the GOP to vote for her in 2008. Penn said his internal polling also shows that 94 percent of women under 35 say they are likely to vote for Hillary in the November 2008 election if she is on the ballot. Clinton would win over women, says Penn, because of the “emotional” appeal of electing the country’s first woman president. “From an ideological perspective it doesn’t make any sense,” Penn acknowledged. “A vote for Hillary is a vote for...

In spite of the increasing dangers that we face as a society from communism, international socialism, fascism, Islamic extremeism, loss of cultural identity, outsourcing of blue collar jobs, a failing public school system, and moral degeneration and emasculation, many if not most people rather than face these problems head on choose to hide from these ugly realities by engaging in the mindless diversions of professional sports, fantasy based television and movie programming, conspicuous consumption, an over reliance on both legal and illegal drugs, and video games. In the 2000 presidential election, only 51% of eligible voters exercised this precious francise...

As the cliche goes, "A conservative is a liberal whose been mugged by reality." Like most cliches, this one exposes a larger truth. Namely, people often base their views on their fantasies of how the world should be than on the reality of how the world actually is. Following this line, the September 11, 2001 attacks can be seen as a large-scale mugging. After the attacks, the same American people that had ignored the threat of totalitarian Islam since the Iranian revolution first categorized the US as the Great Satan back in 1979, acknowledged the danger and recognized it was...

It's time once again to sign everyone up for the FREEPERS Fantasy Football League. This is the 4th year of the league and I'm expanding it to 16 teams and decided to move the league from Yahoo, who hasn't introduced a new or worthwhile feature in years, to EA Sports. As always, this will be a free, competitive league for fun. With the growing popularity of fantasy football, we're also going to make this a LIVE DRAFT league this year. I'm going to tentatively set the draft date for Monday, August 27th at 9:00PM EST. We can move that around...

Among the other firsts of his campaign, Ron Paul is probably the only presidential contender to be compared to a Samuel L. Jackson movie. The Texas congressman, a dark horse candidate for the Republican nomination, was being lightly grilled by Kevin Pereira, a host on the videogame-oriented cable channel G4. "Young people online, they were really psyched about Snakes on a Plane, but that didn't translate into big ticket sales for Sam Jackson," Pereira said. "Are you worried that page views on a MySpace page might not translate to primary votes?" The reference was to the Internet sensation of 2006,...

<p>A grand feast of marinated steaks and jumbo shrimp was winding down, and a group of friends was sitting on the back patio of a Capitol Hill home, sipping red wine. Suddenly, a hooded man slid in through an open gate and put the barrel of a handgun to the head of a 14-year-old guest.</p>

he Iranian president says Iran is planning to revolutionize its oil industry and turn into a petrol exporter within next five years. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday the country intends to start a "revolution in the country's energy sector" and export 150 million liters of petrol on a daily basis by implementing a five-year plan, Fars news agency reported.

Which opens the door to a Swiftian modest proposal, one that might appeal to any billionaire independent presidential candidate who knows the art of a deal: Rather than try to win the White House outright — a long shot — an independent candidate could instead try for a king-making (or queen-making) bloc of votes in the Electoral College. In doing so, a moneyed candidate like Mr. Bloomberg could advance his post-partisan national agenda — and gain a great deal of power — by introducing coalition politics to America’s system of government, through a power-sharing plan that catapults either the Republican...

...UC Berkeley has the world's premiere collection on Mark Twain — and Yale an unmatched trove of rare medieval manuscripts. But for research on Capt. Kirk, Frankenstein or Harry Potter, nothing tops the 110,000-volume Eaton collection at UC Riverside, the world's largest library of science fiction, fantasy and horror books...

Baseball Season is slowly creeping up on us FRiends! I was hoping to find 5-7 more FReepers that would like to join a FREE Fantasy League. First come, first served. Draft is a few hours away and it is a LIVE draft for a tonight so you can listen to Drudge while making picks. If you cannot be there, just pre-rank your players and your team selections will be automated. Good Luck and Game On!

There are readers, and then there are fans. Readers offer condolences when a favorite author falls ill. Fans offer bone marrow. Robert Jordan, author of the best-selling Wheel of Time series, has fans. And if you want to understand them, take a look at his blog. Since last spring, when he announced he had a rare blood disease called amyloidosis, Jordan, 58, has been chronicling his life-and-death struggle online. Whenever he's well enough to write, he thanks the fans who sent care packages, and those who donated to the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minn., where he is being treated. Then...

A 10 year old boy and a 10 year old girl combine their art and writing talents to create a magical kingdom. Not being like all the other kids and not being fully appreciated by their parents, they embark on their own fantasy journey. Evoking images of the "Chronicles of Narnia" and "Harry Potter" Disney paints an image of a high tech journey into yet another magical realm that children and parents can both enjoy and share together at their local theater. HUGE SPOILER - Scroll Down at your own risk! - - - - - - - Jessie and...

A commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Wednesday that a commando unit has engraved the military organization's emblem into the side panel of an American warship stationed in the Persian Gulf. Nur Ali Shushkari, the head of the Revolutionary Guards ground forces, told Iranian pro-government news agencies that the symbol was etched onto the ship by the crew of a submarine that had managed to reach the U.S. vessel without detection by radar. Shushkari did not release specific details about the incident, but claimed that the operation proved that Iranian forces are following American fleet traffic in the region.

What is the underlying conviction of the European countries managing to establish a political and economical union of 500 million citizens? The leading voices of the EU itself seem to believe it all boils down to PC declarations. An alternative assertion to European strength consisting in thoughtless PC gaiety would be the immense, unsurpassed European contribution to the development of Technology, Science and the depiction of Man and his life here upon Earth as interpreted by the Humanist ideals stemming from The Renaissance and Antiquity. The EU comission article: "Federal Minister von der Leyen: "The Strength of Europe is its...

Why Women Are Abandoning MenBy SHMULEY BOTEACH The Jerusalem Post Remember the days when little girls grew up dreaming about a knight in shining armor whisking them off their feet to live happily ever after? Remember when a woman's foremost fantasy was finding the man of her dreams? Well, that's all over now as women are abandoning men in droves and learning to find happiness completely on their own. Two astonishing studies show just how alarming the trend has become. First, there was the study, from the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University and others, that two-thirds of all divorces...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney's pregnant lesbian daughter Mary will make a "fine mom," President George W. Bush said, sidestepping his past comment that a child ideally would be raised by a mother and father. Mary Cheney, 37, and her longtime partner, Heather Poe, are expecting their first child, which would be the sixth grandchild for the vice president. Cheney was hired last year as an executive for America Online. "I think Mary is going to be a loving soul to her child. And I'm happy for her," Bush said in an interview with People magazine.

Although I have never managed to rouse enough interest to form a Free Republic NBA fantasy league, I remain hopelessly optimistic this will be the year it finally happens. If anyone wants to play, I've created a league under the "Salary Cap Challenge" at NBA.com. The league name is "freerepublic", and the password is "zot". The league starts on October 31st, and runs to Februay 15th.

So I mentioned to a friend today how nice it was to see the Dow surging, possibly breaking a record high soon. My liberal friend said, "Oh, the Dow has nothing to do with the economy. They are completely opposite." BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA! I just kind of chuckled and said, "Whatever!" S/he insisted on saying, "No really, it doesn't. They're just basically different." I refused to take the bait and get in an argument. I thought it was funny, but kind of sad: this person has deluded themselves into thinking this surge in the stock market...

Looking for some fantasy football friends to play with. http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f1/register/joinprivateleague_league_select?edit=1&.scrumb= League id is: 582881 Password should be blank but if that doesn't work try 'futball'

Samuel Johnson when confronted with Bishop Berkeley's theory of the non-existence of matter kicked mightily at a stone from which his foot rebounded and said: "I refute it thus". More than 200 years later, the poet Richard Wilbur offered the perfect post-Modern reply when he wrote: "Kick at the rock Sam Johnson/Break your bones/But cloudy, cloudy is the stuff of stones." The Valerie Plame tale should be regarded for what it is-a post-modern fable, ideally expressive of the mode of thought current in media wordsmith gradates of our Ivy League liberal arts faculties. From the very beginning, the rocks of...

Denvention III will be the 66th World Science Fiction Convention. It will be held August 6 - 10, 2008.

The Hugo Awards for best science fiction works in 2005 were presented Saturday, August 26, 2006 at the 64th World Science Fiction Convention, LACon 4, in Anaheim, CA. Best Novel: Spin by Robert Charles Wilson (Tor) Best Novella: "Inside Job" by Connie Willis (Asimov's January 2005) Best Novelette: "Two Hearts" by Peter S. Beagle (Fantasy & Science Fiction October/November 2005) Best Short Story: "Tk'tk'tk" by David D. Levine (Asimov's March 2005) Best Related Book: Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers' Workshop by Kate Wilhelm (Small Beer Press) Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Serenity Written...

If you click on the link it should take you to the right league page. League Name: NFL 2007 League ID: nfl Important: During the signup process you will be asked to create an EA username and password if you have not already done so. Do NOT use your league name and ID for these entries. Instead, create a unique name that you will personally use to login to your league. If you are unable to click on the link above, you may cut and paste the following location into your browser instead : http://fantasy2.easports.com/signup/invite_league.asp?product=122&league=46124

http://fantasy2.easports.com/signup/invite_lookup.asp League Name: NFL 2007 Password: nfl This is a 32-team league setup just like the NFL. Each team is placed in a division and will battle it out for the playoffs and a trip to the conference finals. The conference champs will then press on to the SUPER BOWL! I've never tried EASPORTS' version of fantasy football but stats wise, looks wise, and features wise, it appears to be the best thing going. SO SIGN UP, EVERYONE! And pass this on to your friends. As of press time we have 30 teams to fill so everyone is welcome to...

The great success of Western capitalism has produced a wordsmith class that is utterly removed from the harsher realities of human nature. This pampered governing and media elite shares a fantasy view of human nature as basically benign; aggression is only reactive, not innate. Multicultural egalitarianism is a religious faith, promoted by liberal arts faculties and not subject to refutation by mere facts...

SACRAMENTO - A hotly contested bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in California would spur a wave of new clean-energy technology, prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr predicted Wednesday. Entrepreneurs ``are going to go out and compete and innovate to bring enormous solutions to the market'' if the bill passes, Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, said at a news conference at the Capitol. He was joined by Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, and executives from several alternative-energy companies. Assembly Bill 32, sponsored by Núñez and Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, D-Woodland Hills, would mandate cuts in...

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Israeli radio she hoped a Lebanon ceasefire would take effect in "a day or so" after approval of a UN resolution by the Lebanese and Israeli cabinets. Her comments came shortly before Lebanese Finance Minister Jihad Azour told AFP that his government, which includes Hezbollah representatives, unanimously had voted in favor of the UN resolution calling for an end to hostilities with Israel. He said the approval came "despite some reservations." Rice said she expected Israel's cabinet to approve the UN resolution Sunday. It provides for the deployment of a robust international peacekeeping...

If anyone is interested I'm running the Freepers Fantasy Football League over at Yahoo! again this week. Feel free to come join. There's an auto draft league for people who want to take it easy or are new to the concept. Visit http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f1 and join private league 99463 and the password is freep. The autodraft will be triggered sometime later this month in August. Or, if you are more hardcode, there is a LIVE DRAFT league. You can join it by visiting http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f1 and joining private league 99439 and the password is also freep. The live draft will commense on...

Saving the American Dream We must build an opportunity agenda for the middle class and all who want to join it By Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sen. Tom Carper, and Gov. Tom Vilsack Table of Contents For 230 years, Americans have been united by a simple, common dream that tomorrow will be better than today. The promise of American life, handed on through a dozen generations, rests on this basic bargain: All of us should have the opportunity to live up to our God-given potential, and the responsibility to make the most of it. In the 20th century, that basic...

It's almost that time of year again, and football is in the air.

LONDON, July 17 — The problem with most movie action heroes, said Alex Pettyfer, who plays a teenage secret agent in the forthcoming film “Stormbreaker,” is that they are way too old. “He said, like, ‘Imagine your dad on an ironing board, snowboarding down a mountain with a bunch of guys chasing him,’ ” Mr. Pettyfer, 16, said recently, recounting a preproduction conversation with the screenwriter of “Stormbreaker,” Anthony Horowitz. The full horror of the image is meant to speak for itself: Mr. Pettyfer’s father is “like 47, 48.” To open in Britain on Friday and in the United States...

Stormbreaker, for those who have not stumbled on the four-page ads, or do not have children, arrives in cinemas tomorrow. It introduces quad-biking, scuba-diving, mountaineering, teenage superspy Alex Rider. It is the first in what the makers obviously hope will be a franchise: Anthony Horowitz, who created Rider, has written six novels about him and sold 10m copies. Film adaptations of children's books have always been big business - Disney comes to mind - but since the appearance in 2001 of Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings, they're really big. Last year alone saw Charlie and the Chocolate...

I know it's early, but it's time to start thinking about Fantasy Football! After much success with last year's league, which was won and flatout dominated by the "Gangsta Crabs", it's time for everyone to shoot for the champion ... Matt Perry (no relation to the friends actor), who no doubt will be playing again. The first 14 teams that sign up will be accepted. You'll need a Yahoo account to sign up. It's fast and easy to create one if you need to. http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f1/99439 League Name: Freerepublic Live League ID#: 99439League Password: freep If you need any help or...

WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO TURN ON THE TV AND HEAR ANY U.S. PRESIDENT, DEMOCRAT OR REPUBLICAN GIVE THE FOLLOWING SPEECH? My Fellow Americans: As you all know, the defeat of Iraq regime has been completed. Since congress does not want to spend any more money on this war, our mission in Iraq is complete. This morning I gave the order for a complete removal of all American forces from Iraq. This action will be complete within 30 days. It is now to begin the reckoning. Before me, I have two lists. One list contains the names of countries which...

The best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code has seriously damaged people's faith in the Christian Church, a survey has found.Two thirds of Britons who have read Dan Brown's thriller believe that Jesus fathered a child with Mary Magdalene, a claim rejected as baseless by historians and Bible scholars. Those who have read it are also four times as likely to think that the conservative Roman Catholic organisation Opus Dei, whose members include the Cabinet minister Ruth Kelly, is a murderous sect. Seventeen per cent of readers are convinced that the lay group, whose founder was canonised by the late Pope...

CBN.com – PARIS -- 2006 could prove to be a very dangerous year for Europe, especially for France. Jacques Chirac may have thought that opposing America and Israel would keep France safe from terror, but it has not. Christmas Eve 1994, seven years before 9-11, Islamic terrorists from Algeria tried to fly an Airbus into the Eiffel Tower. They were stopped by French commandos at an airport in Marseilles, where the terrorists were waiting on a full load of jet fuel. They had already packed the plane with dynamite. Europe has lived under the threat of Islamic terror far longer...

Shin Bet: Hamas funded last week's foiled attack at Karni YAAKOV KATZ and HERB KEINON, THE JERUSALEM POST Apr. 30, 2006 Senior Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed on Sunday, funded and trained Palestinian terrorists who last week launched a thwarted terror strike on the Karni Crossing into the Gaza Strip. This was the first time since winning the Palestinian elections in January that Hamas was directly connected to anti-Israel terror activity. A cell consisting of operatives from the Popular Resistance Committee (PRC), the Shin Bet revealed, arrived at the Palestinian side of...

Give the illegals amnesty after a 5-year probationary period, whereas if they commit a felony or two misdemeanors they are immediately deported, make them take mandatory TB and other immunizations and HIV tests within 60 days (out of their own pocket), in that 5-year period they must sign up for a digitized, biometric federal ID card and without this card they cannot obtain employment. Must carry automobile insurance. Employers are fined $25,000 a day if the (formerly) illegals don't present this ID at the time of hire. Make English the official language and end bilingual ballots and in taxpayer-funded education,...

<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>

The world economy is currently running on a resource that is controlled by our enemies. This threatens to leave us prostrate. It must change—and the good news is that it can change, quickly. Using portions of the hundreds of billions of petrodollars they are annually draining from our economy, Middle Easterners have established training centers for terrorists, paid bounties to the families of suicide bombers, and funded the purchase of weapons and explosives. Oil revenues underwrite new media outlets that propagandize hatefully against the United States and the West. They pay for more than 10,000 radical madrassahs set up around...

OSCEOLA -- An Osceola police officer was arrested last week on felony charges relating to sexual acts he allegedly committed with a 15-year-old girl. Ronald Lusk, 50, was arraigned Monday on two felony counts of sexual misconduct with a minor and one misdemeanor count of furnishing alcohol to a minor. An investigation into Lusk's conduct began Thursday, when the girl's mother found her daughter drinking an alcoholic beverage and learned that Lusk had bought it for the girl. Officers later obtained the girl's diary, which described sexual activity between her and Lusk on Sept. 3 at his home in St....

The U.S. and Hamas: A Sick Diplomatic Fantasy By Micah D. Halpern November 15, 2005 Hamas. Democracy. Those two words don't even belong on the same page. And yet, the greatest diplomatic minds the United States has to offer, see a connection. In a complete turnabout, the United States has decided not to be vocal, forceful or interventional when it comes to allowing Hamas to participate in January's Palestinian Legislative Elections. It's all right, says the United States, if Hamas wants to run for the Palestinian Legislature. It's all right if they win. We'll deal with them after the election....

A paleontologist testified in the Dover school board trial about how fossils connect species.The ancestor of the whale and its first cousin the hippopotamus walked the Earth for 40 million years, munching on plants, before dying out in the ice ages. Known as the anthracotheres, it became extinct 50 to 60 million years ago, but not before its evolutionary tree diverged — the whale forging into the oceans, the hippopotamus to the African swamps. Kevin Padian, a University of California-Berkeley paleontologist, told the story of the whale’s journey, along with the travels of its closest living relative, in U.S....

OK, hopeless vanity. Did a thread like this a while back and it didn't last long. Fantasy News Headlines from the future:

If you had three wishes what would you wish for?

http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f1 League ID#: 119073Password: Infidels This is to confirm that you've created the Custom League named League of Infidels and the team called League of Infidels in that league. To allow other managers to join your league, send them the League ID# and Password. In your case, the ID# is 119073 and the Password is Infidels. You have chosen for your league to take part in an Autopick draft. Until the draft takes place, you (and only you) can change the type of draft by using the Change Draft Type option found among your Commissioner Tools, which can be reached...

There's an old topic by this name, and it seems like it would be of some interest in casual moments.

League Name: Freeper Fantasy Football 2 league ID#: 277168 Password: freeper Draft Type: Autopick Draft Max Teams: 20 Scoring Type: Head-to-Head Start Scoring on: Week 1 Can't Cut List Provider: Yahoo! Sports Max Moves: No maximum Max Trades: No maximum Trade Reject Time: 1 Trade End Date: December 2, 2005 Trade Review: League Votes Waiver Time: 1 day Post Draft Players: Follow Waiver Rules Playoffs: Week 14, 15 and 16 (8 teams) Roster Positions: QB, WR, WR, WR, RB, RB, TE, W/R, K, DEF, D, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN Stat Categories: Passing Yards (50 yards per point) Passing Touchdowns (6)...

Yahoo! Fantasy Football The Hot Wing Conspiracy League ID#: 62507 Password: hillaryClick Here to join up today!