Free Republic

It seems that men aren’t very popular these days. There are books o’plenty on the shortcomings and irrelevancy of men. There are songs, and websites, and fabricated stories about bad, bad men. We’re in the midst of a gender war, and men are squarely in the crosshairs of a few tetchy man-scolders. Despite the ruckus, most people seem disinterested in quarreling with the opposite sex. There are very few gender warriors outside academia and a few circles of the media. I think that’s because most people simply want to have fun and enjoy good relationships. If so, that strikes me...

I’ve been asked to give my thoughts on the highly publicized recent “events” in the media because of the pigmentation of my skin. Yes, I am “African American,” but I’d like to simply be referred to as an American. My ethnic background also includes white, black, and Native American. Now that that’s out of the way, here is where I stand: – 15 million children die each year from starvation. (A third of these children live in Africa) – A few months ago, we were all going to get Ebola. (My allergies did get a little crazy around that time.)...

Formerly the "Fans of Quinn and Rose Discussion" thread. We still hold out hope that our favorite talk show hosts will come back on the air - and all indications are that they will be, very soon! (SEE UPDATE BELOW) As we wait, our friendly group will still meet to start the day. So if you are preparing to go to work, are getting home from work - or happily retired - stop in and say mornin' and share the latest news, discuss the weather, share a recipe, or whatever

A sniper has told how he was given the nickname 'The Reaper' by his comrades in the military - after killing 33 men in less than four months. Former Army Ranger Nick ‘Irv’ Irving using his trusty SR-25 rifle he nicknamed ‘Dirty Diana’ to blast insurgents to death during the Iraq War. He was so possessive over ‘his girl’ as he called the gun, that he hated it when other men touched her and would spend four hours a night painting her. Before every battle he would get pumped up to the sounds of men zipping their gear up with...

 SEE: Cruz: Abolish the IRS January 13th , 2015 ”Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said Monday that Republicans should take advantage of their control of Congress to abolish the Internal Revenue Service. “We need to pass fundamental tax reform making our tax code simpler, flatter, fairer,” he said Monday at Heritage Action’s 2015 conservative policy summit. ”And I’ll tell you, the single most important tax reform, we should abolish the IRS.” What is discouraging is, the above article goes on to say that Senator Ted Cruz ”… acknowledged it’s not really possible to abolish the IRS or adopt a flat tax...

Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day and given the context, it is an interesting moment to ask whether it really matters that the Motion Picture academy failed to nominate the black director and the black lead actor of “Selma,” the King biopic, for Oscars. The Oakland Tribune went there and then some on Friday, topping its article about the awards with the headline, “And the Oscar for the best Caucasian goes to ...” While the snubs may sting and point toward a broader blindness, it’s still more important in the long run that a young female black director received...

I have completed a study paper on the roots of progressive journalism. I did not do this for any of my classes, I did this on my own because I wanted to and because I truely think it needed to be studied in a more formal fashion. I have been looking around at a handful of peer-reviewed journals that deal with history, but I do not trust them. Plus, there is the issue of copyright and I do not want what I wrote to fall into the trap of being locked away on some journal's pages on the month of...

For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families, according to a new analysis of 2013 federal data, a statistic that has profound implications for the nation. The Southern Education Foundation reports that 51 percent of students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in the 2012-2013 school year were eligible for the federal program that provides free and reduced-price lunches. The lunch program is a rough proxy for poverty, but the explosion in the number of needy children in the nation’s public classrooms is a recent phenomenon that has been...

The full weight of the failed Enlightenment experiment over-taxes the load bearing pillars that prop up a decaying Western Civilization, pillars that are buckling under the sheer weight of moral corruption on full display in modern society. The ethical structures of the West are in desperate need of repair. This new age is best characterized by the Weird Sisters crowing pronouncement “Fair is foul, and foul is fair, Hover through the fog and filthy air.” The inversion of values has been a massive moral de-construction project that has taken the time honored vertical hierarchy of virtues and vices and turned...

It’s official: Mayor de Blasio is going to be spending part of Martin Luther King Jr. Day with the Rev. Al Sharpton. Hizzoner last week refused to say whether he would be attending the annual King tribute at Sharpton’s National Action Network Harlem headquarters. But the mayor’s office on Saturday confirmed he’ll be there. De Blasio would not confirm last week if he would be attending the annual King tribute at Sharpton’s National Action Network Harlem headquarters.De Blasio would not confirm last week if he would be attending the annual King tribute at Sharpton’s National Action Network Harlem headquarters. PreviousNextDemocratic...

Canadian entertainment icon died Saturday after a battle with cancer

What is it about toy trains that has continued to entertain children, admittedly mostly boys, for nearly two centuries? A major new exhibition is about to find out. They ran to your own personal timetable. Engineering work at weekends was rare. And there were never leaves on the line, just the occasional bit of fluff from the living room carpet. For decades, toy trains have enthralled generations of youngsters - and this coming March the National Railway Museum, in York, looks into why children love them so much, in its exhibition Playing Trains.

The Kurdish Female Peshmerga fighters operates inside Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Their main task is to keep the civillian population safe from terrorist activity. Some female Peshmerga fighters operates as civillian (Asayish) and the primary intelligence agency operating in the Kurdistan region to keep an eye on the area for security reason. They investigative arms and intelligence gatherers operating in the Kurdistan Region. There is a small number of female Peshmerga fighters on the frontlines with the PKK members fighting the Islamic State in Kerkuk and Shingal.

“In the time of Staten Island and Ferguson,” Sharpton said, “to have one of the most shutout Oscar nights in recent memory is something that is incongruous. The only category we’re well represented is in the best picture nomination and it’s a movie about blacks being shut out of society. And now we’re shut out of Hollywood.”

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President Obama is set to sit down with the YouTube creator of “14 Fart Facts for my Flatulent Friends” after the State of the Union address on Tuesday. In a blog posting at WhiteHouse.gov, officials claim the president will be interviewed by three YouTube personalities as an example of “efforts by the president and his administration to speak directly to the American people online.” Hank Green, whose most recent YouTube video at the time of this publication is “14 Fart Facts for my Flatulent Friends”, will be among those questioning the president. Glozell Green and Bethany Mota are the other...

In Lancaster County, PA, an alert and armed woman stopped a crime spree. One of the things that destroys the sense of security in a neighborhood is the proliferation of burglaries and thefts of personal property from vehicles. That is what the pair of suspects were involved in when an alert woman stopped Robert LaFleur from breaking into her car at 2:30 am and held him at gunpoint until the police arrived. It seems unlikely that LaFleur would have obeyed the woman's commands if she had not been armed. The police report that he resisted arrest when they arrived, and...

Hi all! I have a 5 month old puppy. He is (I was told) 1/2 German Shepard + 1/2 Rottweiler. He is also astonishingly intelligent, very easy to train, great memory. Anyway, he already knows sit, stay, come, lay, play dead, and fetch. On his 5 month birthday he weighed exactly 40 pounds. Here are my questions:If he is 40 pounds at exactly five months, what will likely be his weight when fully grown?I would like recommendations on what other commands would be useful? I am already planning to teach him to heel. He learns so quickly that I think...

A city youth worker lost her job this week after Mayor Walsh found out that she was one of 11 protesters who chained themselves to concrete-filled barrels in Milton during Thursday’s protest in support of the activist group Black Lives Matter, the Boston Herald reports. Nelli Ruotsalainen, 25, a Finnish native living in Roxbury who worked part-time for the Boston Centers for Youth and Families as a youth communication specialist, had requested an unpaid personal day on Thursday.

TULSA, Okla. —An off-duty Oklahoma City police officer was involved in a fatal shooting Friday night. The officer, 33, who hasn't been identified, saw the man push the woman to the ground. The officer got out of his vehicle and confronted the man. He said he saw a gun in the man's waistband. When the man began walking toward the officer, the officer said the man reached for the gun. That's when the officer drew his gun and opened fire. The male, 23, who was not identified, was shot several time and taken to St. Francis Hospital. He was pronounced...