Free Republic

A 50-year-old principal was found naked in his school office while watching gay pornography on Tuesday, according to sources. Sex toys were found nearby, the sources added. Police said John Acerra was a longtime teacher and principal in the Bethlehem Area School District, but was also allegedly selling crystal meth out of his school office. Acerra, of Allentown, was the principal of Nitschmann Middle School in Bethlehem, and was arrested minutes after he arranged to sell the notoriously addictive drug to a police informant, according to investigators. Police arrived and found meth and drug paraphernalia on his desk, according to...

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up in “red” states. That's the compelling conclusion of author Michael R. Petit, whose new book, “Homeland Insecurity,” makes a strong case that children in red states are more likely to suffer from poor prenatal care, early death, child abuse and teen incarceration than children in “blue” states. Petit's argument is that states with anti-tax, anti-government ideology are significantly harming their children's health. His book should be required reading for parents and lawmakers -- especially so in California, which is considering legislation that would significantly improve the health of its children. Petit, president of...

I am going to puke...

Elder statesman can bring peace and stability, avoid war It isn't easy to come here and propose that an 83-year-old man should be elected to the post of prime minister, but that's exactly what I intend to do: Shimon Peres for prime minister. Considering the current state of the country – the terrible disappointment over the leading Olmert-Peretz team and the big fear of the Netanyahu-Lieberman alternative – choosing the perennial Peres is the lesser of evils. If Kadima wishes to remain vital, its grand mission now is to replace the prime minister. Olmert won't be delivering. He may take...

<p>FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON ON NOT CAPTURING BIN LADEN: 'At least I tried. That's the difference between me and some, including all the right wingers. They ridicule me for trying. They had eight months to try, they did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed'...</p>

Prime Minister Tony Blair says he wants to devote his last year as Britain's leader to advancing an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. This is not the first time Blair has made clear his view that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a major destabilizing influence in a region the UK has always considered vital to its interests. Blair is known to have strong feelings of affection for Israel. He is also committed to the creation of a Palestinian state he believes essential to restoring some semblance of calm in the Mideast. So his pledge to work on the issue is not especially surprising. For...

I can’t fight the terrorists; I am not really a freedom fighter Published: 09.16.06, 18:27 One man’s Bury-orrist is another man’s Freedom sighter. Oh, I have it right. I didn’t misspell anything. The world in which we live is divided between two kinds of people. There are “Bury-orrists” and there are “Freedom sighters” in the world waging a war as surely as Palestinians and Israelis are constantly at each other’s throats, even when there is no need to be. Which are you? Well, it’s relative, I guess. I am not alone. There is a war going on between the two...

In his highly anticipated memoir, former Gov. James E. McGreevey writes of his deep love for the man who ended his political career, the destruction of his second marriage and the events that forced him into his stunning admission on national television that he is gay. In "The Confession," the former governor also touches on New Jersey's sometimes seamy political landscape, where cash, cronyism and a handful of powerful men intersect. But the 384-page book focuses mostly on McGreevey's secret life, from his frequent sexual encounters with men at highway rest stops to his infatuation with Golan Cipel, the Israeli...

HAVANA -- Iran, Syria, North Korea and more than 100 other nations are pushing to broaden the world's definition of "terrorism" to include the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Converging on Fidel Castro's communist Cuba for a summit this week, members of the Nonaligned Movement complain of a double standard: powerful nations like the United States and Israel decide for the world who the terrorists are, but face no punishment for their own acts of aggression. A draft of the group's joint declaration condemns "terrorism in all its forms," especially violence that targets civilians. Terrorism...

Sen. John F. Kerry yesterday blasted the Bush administration for war and homeland security policies that he said leave Americans more vulnerable to attack. Kerry’s remarks came in a Faneuil Hall speech on the eve of tomorrow’s five-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. In his fourth speech this year at the venue, Kerry accused the administration of using the tragedy that killed about 3,000 Americans to justify the war in Iraq. “It is immoral to treat 9/11 as a political pawn (to) excuse the invasion of Iraq,” Kerry said. “They were attacked and killed not by Saddam...

Here’s what we know. The Bush administration was framed by Valerie Plame, the upper CIA, and the mainstream media, with the active connivance of Richard Armitage, who is well known as Colin Powell’s best friend. Armitage has now been outed, after three years of Wilson-Plame smears against the administration going without an effective answer, and the VP’s chief of staff under indictment. We also know that Colin Powell’s “right hand man,” Col. Larry Wilkerson (ret.) went on a public rampage against the Bush administration, following other foreign policy retreads from Clinton I, such as Richard Clarke, the egregious Joe Wilson...

American support for Israel's unwinnable aim of destroying Hizbullah only boosts its support in Lebanon and beyond Noam Chomsky Friday September 1, 2006 The Guardian In Lebanon, a little-honoured truce remains in effect - yet another in a decades-long series of ceasefires between Israel and its adversaries in a cycle that, as if inevitably, returns to warfare, carnage and human misery. Let's describe the current crisis for what it is: a US-Israeli invasion of Lebanon, with only a cynical pretence to legitimacy. Amid all the charges and counter-charges, the most immediate factor behind the assault is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

After being postponed due to war in Lebanon, World Pride parade will take place one day before eve of Rosh Hashana. 'This year, parade has great significance in light of wave of incitement that Jerusalem community suffered from,' Open House says The Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance organization announced on Monday that the World Pride parade will take place on September 21 in Jerusalem. The pride parade was previously set to take place in August, but it was postponed due to the war in Lebanon. The Open House views the parade, which will take place a day before...

THERE were community meetings in Seattle on Wednesday. Some of the couples who had sued to overturn Washington’s ban on same-sex marriage, a case they lost before the state’s Supreme Court earlier that day, were going to appear. Gay and straight elected officials who support “marriage equality” were going to make speeches. I probably should have been there too. But I had a previous engagement. The Seattle Mariners were playing the Toronto Blue Jays at Safeco Field. My 8-year-old son — adopted at birth by my boyfriend and me — loves the M’s almost as much as he hates the...

World-renowned intellectuals publish open letter to make it clear that world is not ignoring what is happening in the Middle East. Surprisingly, it's us they blame When the war began in northern Israel and the Gaza operation was expanded, Palestinian director and actor Juilano Mar Hamis sent out an e-mail asking who would paint the “Guernica” of Lebanon. Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica,” which shows the results of the Nazi bombing of Guernica in Spain, is still considered a symbol of the destruction and devastation that war leaves in its wake. According to Mar Hamis, his e-mail was intended to awaken the...

Every neighborhood has one, a loudmouth bully who shouldn't be provoked into anger. He's insulted? He'll pull out a knife. Spat in the face? He'll draw a gun. Hit? He'll pull out a machine gun. Not that the bully's not right - someone did harm him. But the reaction, what a reaction! It's not that he's not feared, but nobody really appreciates him. The real appreciation is for the strong who don't immediately use their strength. Regrettably, the Israel Defense Forces once again looks like the neighborhood bully. A soldier was abducted in Gaza? All of Gaza will pay. Eight...

GAZA, Palestine -- As Americans commemorated their annual celebration of independence from colonial occupation, rejoicing in their democratic institutions, we Palestinians were yet again besieged by our occupiers, who destroy our roads and buildings, our power stations and water plants, and who attack our very means of civil administration. Our homes and government offices are shelled, our parliamentarians taken prisoner and threatened with prosecution. The current Gaza invasion is only the latest effort to destroy the results of fair and free elections held early this year. It is the explosive follow-up to a five-month campaign of economic and diplomatic warfare...

Jul. 10, 2006 | There's nothing like a judicial ruling -- in this case, the extremely tortured one written last week by Judge Robert S. Smith of the New York Court of Appeals against gay marriage -- to make me feel simultaneously all-powerful and helpless. On Friday, my family read the news over breakfast. I was on my way to volunteer at my church food pantry; my wife was finishing the endless paperwork for our 17-year-old daughter's college loan, and Katie -- one of the "children" in whose interest the court said it ruled -- was on her way out...

With Rudy Giuliani crisscrossing the country in support of Republican candidates and raising money for his new political action committee, it is beginning to look inevitable that he will seek the presidency in 2008. Despite his lead in many early polls, skeptics still dismiss his chances of winning the Republican nomination given his personal background and liberal views on social issues. There is no doubt that these will be obstacles for Giuliani, but compared to the forces that will propel him into the White House, they are small potatoes. "History is in motion, and those moving with it are so...

June 10, 2006 was the date for the World Naked Bike Ride, which -- as its name suggests -- is an international political event at which protesters take off all their clothes and ride bicycles through various cities around the globe. The focus of the protest is theoretically to encourage people to give up their "dependence on fossil fuel" -- but in practice the messages (which the organizers tell participants to paint directly on their bodies) are more scattered, ranging from "free speech" to presidential politics. I attended the San Francisco version of the event, which started at noon in...