Free Republic

A model displays a spring/summer design by Carlos Diez during the Pasarela Cibeles fashion show in Madrid, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009.

A father has described his shock at finding his 'dead' baby had come back to life when he said goodbye at the wake. Jose Alvarenga's son was born prematurely in Asuncion, Paraguay, weighing just 500 grams (17.6 ounces). The infant was pronounced dead on Thursday and officials put the tiny body in a box and took it to his parents house four hours later. Mr Alvarenga said: "I opened it to look at his remains and found that the baby was breathing. I began to cry." He hurried back to the hospital where his partner was receiving treatment, and nurses...

A well-preserved 4,500-year-old skeleton of a man was found on a beach south of Rome, Italian police told Reuters. The man is believed to be a warrior killed by an arrow in the chest, Reuters reported. Six small vases were also found buried near the man.

An interesting and shall we say ‘odd’ excuse has been found for celebrating the seventh of may! The man to do so is none other than Ron Gordon, the founder of ’square root day’! Gordon is a math teacher from the Redwood City,California and has pointed out that today’s date, written in the American format, 5/7/09, is one among six in this century. Gordon finds the day a perfectly odd, excuse to celebrate the day with some odd celebration! It is indeed an interesting numerical sequence, but Gordon is so excited that he is actually offering a prize of 5-7-9...

A controversial time-out room at Windsor Elementary School is no longer in use, says the superintendent of the Annapolis Valley regional school board. "At this point, the room is not part of any student’s individual program plan," Margo Tait said. Citing confidentiality laws, Ms. Tait couldn’t say if that was the result of any decisions made with respect to eight-year-old Dylan Gale, a Grade 2 student whose family complained after he was placed in the room, which was a storage closet with gym mats taped to the walls for safety. Dylan has been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder and oppositional defiant...

An 82-year-old Italian man who took a Viagra pill scared his wife so much she called the police. Giovanni di Stefano, from Palermo, was so excited his wife thought he would have a heart attack and dialled 999. "The police didn't do anything but their presence had the desired effect. He lost interest in his love life pretty quickly," said a family friend. Terrified wife Carla, 69, told police: "He is 82-years-old and so I thought so much love could have lethal consequences."

NOTICE HOW HE ROLLS HIS EYES BEFORE HAND?

They don't have political rallies to bring them together anymore, but it's no secret that a lot of people out there don't much like Barack Obama. The president-elect, according to his more fervent campaign-season detractors, has a raft of unforgivable faults: He's a socialist, a Muslim, an actual love-child of Malcolm X. His birth certificate was missing, his book had been ghost-written by William Ayers, and his wife, "Mrs. Grievance," as a National Review cover dubber her, was perennially on the cusp of getting caught ranting against the white man. The only thing keeping the Illinois senator's infamy from going...

On an email list, my relatives annoy me by sending "Bush-is-stupid" jokes. Can someone compile a list of dumb things Obama has said or done (like the 57 states, choosing as VP the senator who got about 2 votes in the primary)? I'd like to annoy the Obama worshippers.

RALLY AT SUPREME COURT FOR PHIL BERG!! THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2008 AT 3:00 PM EST Everyone that can, grab your signs and please be at the steps of the Supreme Court at 3:00 PM this afternoon! The things to go on the signs will be listed below. We need as large a Crowd as we can get to be waiting at the steps of Supreme Court for Mr. Berg, the person meeting him at the Train Station as well as Will Bower who will be there to accompany him there. Fox News will also be at the Train Station and...

NOTE: The below comes from one of the smartest two blogs out there for insight on polls (the other being Wizbang). Things have been unraveling for Obama since early voting began — just like in the primaries, Obama’s alleged advantage amongst his “youth army”, blacks, and yuppies is not turning up in the early vote “tidal wave” he was supposed to have. Obama spent TENS OF MILLIONS of dollars trying to drive early votes to him, but it’s not happening. Practically every Democrat we know has early voted — and all of them have voted for John McCain and Sarah...

The Obama-mercial was fairly highly rated across the three broadcast networks (CBS, Fox and NBC) in the early metered market numbers. Between the three networks it scored an impressive combined 17.8/29 (household rating/share). http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/10/30/early-wednesday-ratings-obama-ad-pushes-daisies-six-feet-under/7185 Anyone know how that correlates to number of household viewing?

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1019...rket-headwinds Obama Billionaire Supporters Are Causing Market Headwinds by: Jason Schwarz October 28, 2008 | Market turmoil gets Barack Obama elected. He knows this and more importantly, so do his supporters. A survey released by Prince and Associates, shows that 75% of voters worth $1 million to $10 million are favoring John McCain, but of those voters worth more than $30 million, two-thirds support Obama. It's no secret that the majority of uber rich individuals despise the current administration and are willing to do whatever they can to get new blood into the White House; even if it comes under...

I figured it would be funny to have a thread devoted to all of the strange supposed Presidential Election 2008 predictors. Please post a history of the ones you know and any news on how current ones are playing out.

CHINA / Odd News Bad habits key to man's longevity (China Daily) Updated: 2007-05-21 14:52 Zhang Shuqing, a centenarian in Pixian, Sichuan, has his own secret for long life - smoking every day and drinking liquor after every meal. Zhang, whose daughter died eight years ago, turned 100 on May 7. He lives with his nephew Zhang Chenggui. Zhang senior said he started smoking and drinking strong liquor when he was in his early 20s. Since then, he has smoked every day and taken a drink with every meal. According to his grandson Xu, Zhang has consumed 15 tons of...

One thousand one hundred and four years ago a criminal trial took place in Italy, a trial so macabre, so gruesome, so frightful that it easily qualifies as the strangest and most terrible trial in human history. At this trial, called the Cadaver Synod, a dead pope wrenched from the grave was brought into a Rome courtroom, tried in the presence of a successor pope, found guilty, and then, in the words of Horace K. Mann's The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages (1925), "subjected to the most barbarous violence." For the past several centuries the papacy...

A transgendered woman who was told to use the men's room at Loehmann's has filed a complaint alleging discrimination by the discount retail chain. Jane Galla, who describes herself as a regular Loehmann's shopper, says in a complaint filed Dec. 1 with the city Commission on Human Rights and announced yesterday that she was denied access to the Chelsea store's fitting rooms and rest rooms. "I felt humiliated when I was publicly told to use the men's fitting room" in April, the woman said through a statement from the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund. "I've been living as a...

CINCINNATI - A 13-foot boa constrictor wrapped itself around its owner's neck and killed the man in his home, authorities said. An acquaintance found Ted Dres, 48, inside the snake's cage Saturday and called police, the Hamilton County Sheriff's office said. The snake was still strangling Dres when deputies arrived, and the officers had to work with members of an animal protection group to remove the reptile, the sheriff's office said. Dres' snake will be kept at an animal shelter awaiting instructions from police or Dres' family, said Andy Mahlman, spokesman for the Cincinnati Society for the Prevention of Cruelty...

Eurotrash goes intergalactic tonight when two naked television presenters host the first programme conceived for aliens and broadcast to a star located in the Big Dipper, 45 light years away. Despite the English language title, the programme, Cosmic Connexion, as conceived by the channel Arte, assumes the aliens will have a working knowledge of German and French - the station's two working languages. The TV show has been conceived as an idiot's guide to humankind, or close encounters of the nude kind. The hosts will explain how the human body is created - thus justifying their own nakedness - and...

This thread reminded me of my dad. He was from Milwaukee, so garlic sausage, herring, cheese, etc., were things he loved. I mentioned that my dad would have herring and limburger cheese on Ritz Crackers every New Year's. He also liked sugar on his tomatoes. Once mentioned that he had eaten opposum (which everyone else at that dinner enjoyed until they found out what they had eaten). If it was different, he was going to give it a try. The weirdest food combination isn't so much. Just dill pickles and ice cream. I started that in high school. It just...