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Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America. Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to. Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American. Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the '60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American...

Families have been warned to expect a decline in their standard of living as rising food and fuel prices place household finances under severe strain. Britons have enjoyed a decade of high spending on luxury goods, holidays and second homes, fuelled by low interest rates, easy credit and near-record lows in living costs. But Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, issued a stark warning that this period had come to an end. In an uncharacteristically blunt statement, he said rising inflation and the fallout from global economic turmoil would take its toll on the spending power of...

<p>Before Gen. David Petraeus' report, and to give it a context of optimism, the president visited Iraq's Anbar province to underscore the success of the surge in making hitherto anarchic areas less so. More significant, however, was the fact that the president did not visit Baghdad. This underscored the fact that surge has failed, as measured by the president's and Petraeus' standards of success.</p>

In a nutshell, Verizon dialed up Akon's people and asked if he'd like to be a spokesperson or a featured artist or whatever on all their cellies. They said they were down. Michelle Malkin got on the case and published Akon's reprehensible lyrics and a video of his crude animal-like assault in Trinidad. We started banging Verizon's media phones line and today they decide Akon was no longer on their A-List. It's not going to save my kid's generation but eventually these idiots are going to reign in their behavior or else. This isn't morality policing. This isn't telling women...

WASHINGTON, March 22, 2007 – Medal of Honor recipients are heroes, despite their many humble objections to the label, and are important to the fabric of our society, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England told those gathered yesterday to celebrate the official naming of March 25 as National Medal of Honor Day. Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England highlights the importance of the Medal of Honor and its recipients to the nation and military while speaking at a ceremony honoring recipients and celebrating Congress’s recent designation March 25 each year as National Medal of Honor Day. Photo by Fred W. Baker...

Despite the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, the torture and abuse of Iraqi detainees in U.S. custody has continued, according to a new report released over the weekend by Human Rights Watch. Soldiers told HRW that in direct violation of international law, detainees at one camp "were regularly stripped naked and subjected to beatings, forced exercises, severe sleep deprivation and various forms of degrading and humiliating treatment." The report describes alleged abuses at three different detention facilities in Iraq between 2003 and 2005. These abuses, the reports says, were authorized and routine.

So now we know who the two Duke lacrosse players are who are accused of raping an exotic dancer. Reade Seligmann of Essex Fells, New Jersey, and Collin Finnerty of Garden City, New York, have been indicted, arrested, made initial court appearances and paraded before the cameras. Here's the reality: They are halfway to ruin. They are done as athletes. Their academic career — if they had one — is probably toast, and they are for the foreseeable future accused rapists.

SAMARRA, Iraq (March 27, 2006) – The Army has a catchphrase; “Adapt, improvise and overcome,” and that is just what medics at Forward Operating Base Brassfield-Mora are doing. 2nd Lt. Edward C.F. Lau, Evacuation Platoon Leader, 690th Medical Company in support of the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, FOB Brassfield-Mora in Samarra had an idea to implement the design for a new medical evacuation platform. “My chain of command gave the opportunity to implement a new ground evacuation doctrine, and depending on its success, it will be the new standard for ground patient movement in Iraq,” says...

The key issue at stake in the battle over the twelve Danish cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad is this: Will the West stand up for its customs and mores, including freedom of speech, or will Muslims impose their way of life on the West? Ultimately, there is no compromise: Westerners will either retain their civilization, including the right to insult and blaspheme, or not.More specifically, will Westerners accede to a double standard by which Muslims are free to insult Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism, while Muhammad, Islam, and Muslims enjoy immunity from insults? Muslims routinely publish cartoons far more...

Opponents of the war say the only Al Qaeda elements in Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion were those in Kurdish areas not controlled by Saddam. This simply is not so, but for the sake of argument, let’s say it is. And if so, would not the U.S. – as a critical front in the global war on terror – have to invade those areas to shut down the Al Qaeda cells? Of course. And that in itself would have been a far more dangerous “limited war” with Iraq involving a direct ground confrontation with Saddam’s army anyway.

http://westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=article&article_id=928 A nation torn apart An exclusive Western Standard poll shows more than a third of westerners are thinking of separating from Canada. What’s dividing the country--and can anything be done to save it? Kevin Steel - August 22, 2005 It wasn’t just what the bumper sticker said, but where it was placed and what it was stuck on. The white rectangle that read, "One hundred years is long enough," followed by the website address, www.separationalberta.com, was high up in the rear window of a shiny new, high-end SUV driving through supposedly Liberal downtown Edmonton-- not on a dusty old...

A distressing number of California students have completed 12 years in classrooms but can't read on a tenth-grade level or do eighth-grade math. So they can't pass the state's high-school exit exam within six tries in three years. Should they graduate anyway? The correct answer is no, they shouldn't. Graduating kids who can't meet even minimum standards does them no favors – or their prospective colleges or employers. And it diminishes the meaning and reputation of high-school diplomas for all students, including the majority capable of passing the exit exam. According to the Los Angeles Times, 83 percent of 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...

Only a Liberal could love this much

Many people have many problems with many things. Some you have control over and some you don’t. The real problem begins when you can’t get your problem solved. “What? You won't help me? But? You have my money! My product doesn’t work!” Have you ever been in this situation? I have had problems with products or services several times and they are usually quickly resolved. Well, over the past year I have had several problems that just haven’t gotten resolved. So, what better place to take them than to the public. I may even make this a recurring column and...

DISCOUNTING FOR AN UNDERWATER EARTHQUAKE that sent 40-foot-high waves traveling thousands of miles across the open sea to inflict death and destruction on an unimaginable scale, it was kind of a sleepy holiday for the Washington political community, newswise. So you can understand the titillation that shimmered through the capital when the local paper announced, a few days after Christmas, that President Bush might delay his plan to "simplify" the tax code! "Bush Expected to Delay Major Tax Overhaul," said the headline in the Washington Post. At last there was something else to talk about on Inside Politics.

Rather got off too easy By Al Knight Denver Post Columnist Article Published: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 An independent panel's probe of the disputed Sept. 8 "60 Minutes" report on President Bush's National Guard service allows for only one conclusion: The program segment was an example of lousy, if not biased, journalism and most of the culprits responsible, especially CBS producer Mary Mapes, deserved to be fired. However, for reasons not yet clear, CBS anchorman Dan Rather was spared a similar fate. Although Rather has resigned his anchorman position, he will continue to work for CBS on both the Sunday...

Self-proclaimed "neoconservative" Andrew Sullivan thanks "neoconservative" Weekly Standard for running another anti-Rumsfeld article; (didn't the neocons - including WStandard - used to love Rumsfeld, when he first launched their war? Why must he be blamed because he bought their bad idea?): """WHY RUMSFELD MUST GO: Fred Kagan sums it up eloquently. Kudos to the Weekly Standard for keeping up the pressure: ""With more troops in Iraq during and immediately after the war, we would have been able to do the following things that we did not do: * Capture or kill thousands of Iraqi soldiers who were at that time...

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!