Free Republic

The TV and the written press keep referring to the attack on the USS Cole as having been a “terrorist” attack. Any definition of the word “terrorist” insists that the attack described be against a civilian target with an aim of resulting in a political change. I do believe that this word is being used so as to elicit sympathy and, to some, fear and therefore urge the public be skeptical when they come across it in the press. Recently, I came across the use of “victims,” referring to crew members on the Cole that were killed, instead of “casualties”...

In Japan, "What's your type?" is much more than small talk; it can be a paramount question in everything from matchmaking to getting a job. By type, the Japanese mean blood type, and no amount of scientific debunking can kill a widely held notion that blood tells all. In the year just ended, four of Japan's top 10 best-sellers were about how blood type determines personality, according to Japan's largest book distributor, Tohan Co. The books' publisher, Bungeisha, says the series — one each for types B, O, A, and AB — has combined sales of well over 5 million...

Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska, has come under pressure to respond to the discovery that staff members in her state's government had received and forwarded racist emails about President-Elect Barack Obama. One of the emails asked about the outcome of the Democrat's victory and concluded: "Another black family living in government housing!" Another, entitled "Night Befo Crizzmus," was forwarded dozens of times, according to the state's information technology division. Administration commissioner Annette Kreitzer said: "It's embarrassing to the state." Mrs Kreitzer said she alerted the office of Mrs Palin, the failed Republican vice presidential candidate in the recent election,...

There has always been a desire to maintain credibility and integrity on Free Republic. That is eroding with each new, Obama, birth certificate story. Many of those creating this ruckus claim are flying a false flag of Constitutionality when it is actually an effort to paint all Conservatives with the broad brush of conspiratorialism of the most dangerous kind. Thank you.

If Barack Hussein Obama II is Malcolm X's biological son, it would explain the mystery of why he was so generously helped by so many Arab and communist "friends in high places" long before he was a "somebody." ..."There are said to be photos of Ann Dunham on Waikiki Beach taken in or about July 1961, when she is supposed to have been in her third trimester, in a bikini, taken by a fellow female student. AD is clearly not pregnant...[The] CIA did a DNA test on the grandparents, using saliva from glasses, which conclusively rules out any relationship between...

Eating less meat is one of the most effective steps any of us can take to fight climate change, as Nicholas Read points out in his insightful article in The Vancouver Sun last week. However, as he demonstrates, despite evidence that intensive meat production contributes significantly to global warming, and to further threats to public health and environment such as water pollution, most citizen and environmental groups play down the issue. They ask people to walk more and turn off lights, but usually steer clear of the meat question. As an educator working on this issue, I can concur that...

Now are rough times. For all of us. This is where we stand: Liechtenstein/Saudi Arabia: Business as usual, minor sources of irritation Venuzuela: INRI - IN a moRon CommunIst we trust, that'll do the trick! Germany/Switzerland/Austria: High tax, some captial, medium sized car, can't afford fuel, decent house, nothing left of our former empires. USA: Moderate tax, nice eating out, nice car, heavy debt, some capital, some fuel, no home. Japan: Small tax, microscopic car, no future Italy, Spain: Heavy tax, small car + vespas, Fascist tradition, government debt, Catholicism, nice food Norway: Heavy tax, small car, dried cod (lutefisk),...

Is Halloween Harmless? Every year at Halloween, well-meaning parents dress their children in grotesque and ghoulish costumes. Is Halloween really harmless? Who and what's behind this bizarre holiday? by Jerold Aust It all looks like so much fun and seems so harmless: jack-o'-lanterns, grotesque grinning masks, long black witch attire with pointed black hats, costumes painted like skeletons, outfits that represent demons and goblins, and children going door to door, soliciting treats from compliant neighbors. But when Halloween comes around, do you find yourself yearning for the hours to pass until the whole trick-or-treat farce is over? If you don't,...

For more than a half a century, those few humans who knew about the time Milton Torres battled a giant UFO had only his word as proof. Yesterday, after British officials released previously classified Ministry of Defense 'X-files', the world found out the secret that Milton — now a retired civil engineering professor living in Miami — was ordered never to reveal. According to the documents, on the night of May 20, 1957, the former U.S. F-86D Sabre pilot was told by his U.K. commanders to unload all 24 of his rockets on a mysterious object moving over the sleepy...

It saddens me when I see a member of my profession go over to "the dark side," that is, to politics. Politics replaces voluntary action with compulsion, private contract with coercion. Government intervention imposes distortions, inefficiencies, and extra costs on society. In essence, politics is "anti-economics," a nullification of economics, so for an economist to argue for more government control over private economic decisions and transactions, is anomalous, pathetic, and an abandonment of economic truth. We see frequent examples of economists mutilating economic principles during an election year. The latest example is an article, "The Great Debate," by Alan Blinder,...

Let's fill some trucks with books, drive them downtown and burn them in front of the Chicago Public Library. Let's drive other trucks to the regional libraries and burn them, too . . . I mean the books, not the libraries, though libraries are the source of the problem. If it weren't for the libraries, it would be hard for innocent young people to be corrupted by the filth pouring out of the country's printers. Instead of burning books or libraries, perhaps we ought to start smashing printing presses. They have served as tools of sin and the devil since...

For those who are or claim to be unfamiliar with the Larry Sinclair story, let me summarize it as briefly as possible. Larry Sinclair, who now lives in Duluth, Minnesota, claims to have spent parts of the evenings of Nov. 6 and Nov. 7, 1999 with Senator Obama in Chicago. At least as far back as 1986 Sinclair has been in trouble with the law, arrested for a variety of things (fraud seemingly at the top of the list), and had been up to that time in and out of prison. He is an openly gay man, and he seems...

The Annenberg Political Factcheck website has published photographs and an analysis of what it says is the "original birth certificate" of Barack Hussein Obama II. While the physical document depicted in the photos resemble the document image previously scanned and published by the Daily Kos website and Obama's own "Fight the Smears" site in June, FactCheck's case for authenticity and its claims to objectivity are undermined by a litany of process flaws, conflicts of interest and factual inconsistencies that raise doubts about its motives and methods of those of the Obama campaign. The Factcheck.org report, titled "Born in the USA,"...

Ethnic and racial minorities will account for a majority of the U.S. population in a little more than a generation, according to new projections from the Census Bureau. The Bureau calculates that by 2042, Americans who identify themselves as Hispanic, black, Asian, American Indian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander will outnumber non-Hispanic whites. Four years ago, officials had projected the shift would not occur until 2050. The main reason for the accelerating change is significantly higher birthrates among immigrants, The New York Times reports.

Ethnic and racial minorities will comprise a majority of the nation’s population in a little more than a generation, according to new Census Bureau projections, a transformation that is occurring faster than anticipated just a few years ago. The census calculates that by 2042, Americans who identify themselves as Hispanic, black, Asian, American Indian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander will together outnumber non-Hispanic whites. Four years ago, officials had projected the shift would come in 2050. The main reason for the accelerating change is significantly higher birthrates among immigrants. Another factor is the influx of foreigners, rising from about 1.3...

ON the afternoon of Nov. 7, 2006, pilots and airport employees at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago saw a disc-like object hovering over the tarmac for several minutes. Because nothing was tracked on radar, the Federal Aviation Administration did not investigate. Yet radar is not a reliable detector of all aircraft. Stealth planes are designed to be invisible to radar, and many radar systems filter out signals not matching the normal characteristics of aircraft. Did it really make sense to entirely ignore the observations of several witnesses? < > On Dec. 26, 1980, for instance, several witnesses at two American...

Barack Obama has never been shy about comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln. He did so when he announced his candidacy at the Illinois state capitol, where both he and Lincoln served in the legislature. "The life of a tall, gangly, self-made Springfield lawyer tells us that a different future is possible," Obama said. "He tells us that there is power in words ... He tells us that there is power in hope." That was, well, audacious, to say the least — and the comparisons have continued, on issues large and small. But the most important similarity, in Obama's mind, is...

For insights into healthy marriages, social scientists are looking in an unexpected place. A growing body of evidence shows that same-sex couples have a great deal to teach everyone else about marriage and relationships. Most studies show surprisingly few differences between committed gay couples and committed straight couples, but the differences that do emerge have shed light on the kinds of conflicts that can endanger heterosexual relationships. The findings offer hope that some of the most vexing problems are not necessarily entrenched in deep-rooted biological differences between men and women. And that, in turn, offers hope that the problems can...

ON RIGHT NOW! "Including references to "Whitey". There has been a race for Clinton operatives to aquire this tape, but I believe this tape is already in the hands of a major network." This JUST aired minutes ago on "Geraldo"... Geraldo prefaced by saying that Roger Stone was the same person who first exposed Spitzer's relationship with hookers.