Free Republic

LEGACY Oh say do you recall his shining city on the hill Though strained and scarred by wickedness, that city stands here still A proud and grateful people watched his strength illuminate her That beautiful, bright city of the Great Communicator

The good news is that polls continue to show that between one and two-thirds of the public thinks that extraterrestrial life exists. The weird news is that a similar fraction thinks that some of it is visiting Earth. Several recent television shows have soberly addressed the possibility that alien craft are violating our air space, occasionally touching down long enough to allow their crews to conduct bizarre (and, in most states, illegal) experiments on hapless citizens. While these shows tantalize viewers by suggesting that they are finally going to get to the bottom of the so-called "UFO debate", they never...

The European nation-state considered to be the least Europeanist, the United Kingdom, took the presidency of the E.U. on July 1, right after the double French and Dutch rejection of the E.U. Constitutional Treaty and the failure of the June 16-17 European Council -- a sign interpreted by many as the beginning of the end for the European political and strategic union. Although many observers believe that the British rotation is going to further aggravate the E.U.'s political crisis, and that the project of a common European Security and Defense Policy (E.S.D.P.) could suffer from a "final blow" in the...

"An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense - perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire - that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other. In order to understand the source of their antagonism, it is necessary first to understand the specific role of gold in a free society. Money is the common denominator of all economic transactions. It is that commodity which serves as a medium...

"An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense - perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire - that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other. In order to understand the source of their antagonism, it is necessary first to understand the specific role of gold in a free society. Money is the common denominator of all economic transactions. It is that commodity which serves as a medium...

Face to face with the great firewall of China Michael Geist Citizen Special Thursday, May 05, 2005 As the Internet was taking flight in the early 1990s, John Gilmore, one of the co-founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a leading online civil liberties group, is credited with having coined the infamous phrase that "the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.'' Gilmore's view has since been regularly invoked whenever there are failed attempts to limit the dissemination of information. Beginning with a string of cases dating back to the Paul Bernardo trial in the mid-1990s, the Internet has...

HILLARY STOKES '08 FIRE WITH RED-HOT SPEECH By IAN BISHOP ----------------------------------------- HILLARY CLINTON Photo: Rick Dembow April 11, 2005 -- MINNEAPOLIS — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton bowled over the Democratic faithful in the key 2008 presidential swing state of Minnesota with a fiery weekend stump speech that had fans hailing her as the "great hope" to take back the White House. "She speaks her mind and she's a leader," swooned Debra Manninen. "She's our great hope." Party faithful here devoured Clinton's brand-new, red-meat material in her first major political speech Saturday night since the November 2004 election, which aides said...

ROME (Reuters) - The "Great Satan," part of the "axis of evil" and an "outpost of tyranny" will gather for the funeral of Pope John Paul, who toiled for peace but whose mourners find it hard to forgive each other. At what is expected to be one of the biggest funerals ever, there will be heads of governments whose hostile exchanges have long dominated the headlines -- the United States and Iran, Israel and Syria, Zimbabwe and Britain among others. "The conviction he had about humankind, about life and about peace -- it just shone through," said former U.S. president...

What meaningful eulogy can a rabbi possibly add to the many heartfelt tributes being paid to the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II? Ancient Jewish wisdom advised that in this world a man is known by his father. Not only a man's last name, but much of his identity comes from his father. However, after the process of death transforms us to spirit, we look to our children and grandchildren for clues to our eternity. In the future world of the spirit, where all is light and truth, Judaism teaches that each of us will be known by the actions...

N/T Syndicated Personality of the Year Nominees: Glenn Beck The Glenn Beck Show Premiere Radio Networks Sean Hannity The Sean Hannity Show ABC Radio Networks Don Imus Imus In The Morning Westwood One Laura Ingraham The Laura Ingraham Show Talk Radio Network Rush Limbaugh The Rush Limbaugh Show Premiere Radio Networks Dave Ramsey The Dave Ramsey Show Independent The Winner!

TEHRAN -- Iran takes the military threats of the United States and the Zionist regime seriously and is prepared to repel any air, ground, or sea attack, a top military official said here on Tuesday. "We take the U.S. and Israeli threats seriously, given the statements made by U.S. and Israeli officials over the past 26 years," Army Commander Major General Mohammad Salimi stated. The enemies of the country are seeking regime change in Iran, he said on the sidelines of a graduation ceremony at the Military Academy. Commenting on the so-called Greater Middle East Initiative, the recent statements of...

HONG KONG -- An upscale Hong Kong grocery store is being prosecuted after a customer allegedly discovered 575 beetles in a jar of cereal he bought, officials and media reports said yesterday. The customer, lawyer Philip Dykes, said the breakfast cereal was "too organic for my liking," according to the South China Morning Post. The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department has charged the Great grocer store with sale of "food not of the nature, substance or quality demanded by the purchaser," said Emily Mak, a department spokeswoman. The charge carries a maximum fine of 10,000 Hong Kong dollars, $1,589 Cdn,...

The year was 1783. While formal hostilities had virtually ceased between the Crown and the American colonies, peace talks continued to drag on in London. The Congress was broke and in serious debt even though the Articles of Confederation, which required individual states to contribute funds to the Congress, had been approved two years earlier. The Continental Army was restless. Many of its officers hadn’t been paid in months. Promises made by Congress at the time of their enlistment regarding reimbursement for food and clothing, pensions, and a pledge to give the officers half pay for life were either not...

Source: University of Kansas Released: Sat 12-Feb-2005, 09:00 ET Embargo expired: Tue 15-Feb-2005, 00:00 ET Discovery Could Change Dates for Human Arrival on the Great Plains Dated by carbon-14 methods at 12,200 years old, recently discovered bones could be the oldest evidence of human occupation in Kansas, and they may be the oldest evidence of humans on the Great Plains. For photos related to the story, go to http://www.kgs.ku.edu/General/News/2005/kanorado.html Newswise — Bones of now-extinct animals and a rock fragment discovered last summer in northwestern Kansas could rewrite the history of humans on the Great Plains. The bones, which appear to...

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Dick Weber, one of bowling's first national stars and a three-time bowler of the year, died. He was 75. Weber died Sunday night in his sleep at his home in the St. Louis area, said Steve James, retired executive director of the American Bowling Congress Hall of Fame. A cause of death was not immediately known. Weber had just returned from the opening of the congress' championships in Baton Rouge, La. James said he spent Sunday morning with Weber, who gave no indication he was ill. In an e-mail to the Bowlers Journal, Weber's wife, Juanita,...

Composing can be a lonely job. Hour after hour, the composer sits at a piano, trying to bring out the music in his head. But for Aaron Copland, composition was about the people. Working with people, learning from them, befriending them, organizing and mentoring them. His enthusiasm for combining music with humanity assured his place in music history almost as much as his compositions. "As organizer, teacher, propagandist, critic, lecturer and expositor, he has been by far the most voluble, articulate and respected American musician of his time," wrote Harold Schonberg in The New York Times in 1970. His ballets...

Until the 18th century, there was basically only one kind of Judaism, that which is now called Orthodox. It meant living by the religion's 613 laws, and doing so suffused Jews' lives with their faith. Then, starting with the thinker Baruch Spinoza (1632-77) and moving briskly during the Haskala, or "enlightenment," from the late 18th century, Jews developed a wide variety of alternate interpretations of their religion, most of which diminished the role of faith in their lives and led to a concomitant reduction in Jewish affiliation.These alternatives and other developments, in particular the Holocaust, caused the ranks of the...

Chris Whittle, who edits Sunday Morning Shootout ... has a fascinating, wide ranging post on his site Eject! Eject! Eject!, which hits many of my political-entertainment industry buttons. The amn knows whereof he speaks, and has a lot of worthwhile thoughts. >>There are only eight conservative actors in the history of Hollywood, and five of them have been elected to high office. (The sixth was elected president of the National Rifle Association, the seventh was elected Mayor of Carmel, California on a pro-business platform, and John Wayne had the class to never run for – or from – anything.) If,...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

The makers of Colin Farell's upcoming epic 'Alexander' are facing the threat of lawsuit for claiming warrior Alexander the Great was bisexual.A group of furious Greek lawyers insist the legendary conqueror was heterosexual, and now they are looking into suing film studio Warner Brothers and director Oliver Stone for claims to the contrary.Yannis Varnakos, the spokesman for the 25 lawyers, says, 'The production company should make it clear that this film is pure fiction and not a true depiction of the life of Alexander.'The group of attorneys say they have gathered enough evidence so far to know that there are...