Free Republic

One landed on Omaha Beach just past dawn on D-Day, June 6, 1944. The other survived a German POW camp. Neither claims to be a hero — which is precisely why we honor these two Tucsonans as Veterans Day approaches. "Yes, I was scared. You had to be. But I credit our training for getting me through," says Bob Kirby, 88. A corporal with the 81st Chemical Mortar Battalion, Kirby waded in chest-deep water onto Omaha Beach 50 minutes past the first landings. "Bodies were floating all around, and bullets were pinging in the water. I don't know why we...

Strong winds have always blown across this vast grassy plain. Perhaps the area's topography has something to do with it, but the direction of the wind remains constant, irrespective of the time or season: From east to west, from the horizon where the sun rises to the horizon where the sun sets. Swept by the unceasing winds, the misshapen trunks and branches of shrubs all incline to the west. Tall grasses do not grow here, and the grasses that do grow all lie flat on the ground, bending westward. Caravans and herding folk traverse the single road that crosses the...

Police in Massachusetts said a 31-year-old pregnant woman was miraculously unharmed after accidentally backing her car off the fourth story of a parking garage. Springfield Police Lt. Rupert Daniel said the woman, who was alone in her car at the time, accidentally put her Hyundai Sonata in reverse and drove off the fourth story of the downtown garage, plunging 40 feet to the sidewalk below, WWLP-TV, Springfield, reported Tuesday. The woman was treated for minor injuries at Baystate Medical Center and released.

The headlines and videos conservatives should digg for the day are up - as well as a couple bury suggestions. http://diggsandburies.blogspot.com/

Barack Obama and the media: The marathon make-out session between President Barack Obama and the mainstream media will continue – in Bill Clinton’s former hotel room, better known as the Oval Office. Obama will shrug off any responsibilities that Clinton’s “third term” appointees can’t contend with, and everyone will be expected to understand that it’s still all George W. Bush’s fault. At the end of the year, Obama will emerge as the president who aged the least during his first year in office. Israel and Palestine (featuring Hillary Clinton): It would appear that the world’s most boring and predictable soap...

Researchers are cloaking materials from light, sound, and even matter itself. Two years ago a team of engineers amazed the world (Harry Potter fans in particular) by developing the technology needed to make an invisibility cloak. Now researchers are creating laboratory-engineered wonder materials that can conceal objects from almost anything that travels as a wave. That includes light and sound and—at the subatomic level—matter itself. And lest you think that cloaking applies only to the intangible world, 2008 even brought a plan for using cloaking techniques to protect shorelines from giant incoming waves. Engineer Xiang Zhang, whose University of California...

This is actually a pretty good list if you visit the link. Spitzer, Palin, Blago, Obama. 2008 was certainly one of the weirdest years politically. Who would have predicted the fall of Hillary and at the hands of Obama who is so much more to the left than even Hillary.

Michael Savage has a new book out called “Psychological Nudity”. This is a catchy title for his gathering of stories about his life. They bare glimpses of what makes him tick. Since Savage will probably not be getting a good review from the “New York Times“, (which he calls the “Old York Times”), this book deserves one, so here it is. Other newspapers will also not be reviewing his book favorably. Maybe this is why they are sinking like a rock in their readership numbers. People recognize quality and truth when they see it. In this book of eclectic stories...

OMAHA, Neb., July 30, 2008 – As competitors were hurrying from one competition to the next at the 28th National Disabled Veterans Wheelchair Games, some paused between venues to commit to history their accounts of their military service and the impact it’s had on their lives. Steve Hollingshead, an audiovisual specialist for the Department of Veterans Affairs, puts a microphone on retired Army Lt. Col. Jim Howe, before conducting an interview for the Veterans History Project. Defense Dept. photo by Donna Miles  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Tucked quietly away from the brightly lit competitions, Steve Hollingshead from...

http://www.realamericanstories.com/ People describe what it means for them to be an American.

Pig humor with a moral, the moral is, a pig is a pig and beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

Melancholy Serenades by: Malcolm A. Kline, June 11, 2008 Education professionals think that they have come up with a way to get middle school students to share their life experiences in a way that is both therapeutic and instructive but the exercises they have concocted may prove to be intrusive at best. “In their writer’s notebook, students draw a horizontal line across the page,” Karen D. Wood writes in the May 2008 issue of Middle School Journal. “Above the line, they note the highlights of their lives; moments that are fond memories.” “Below the line, they note the lowlights of...

Pig humor with a moral, the moral is, a pig is a pig and beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

It was a simple commercial, with Mike Huckabee posed in front of a set of scandalously empty white bookshelves that, when framed just right beside a Christmas tree, formed a glowing cross behind the candidate. And, lo, the former Southern Baptist pastor told the voters: "Are you about worn out by all the television commercials you've been seeing, mostly about politics? I don't blame you. At this time of year, sometimes it's nice to pull aside from all of that and just remember that what really matters is a celebration of the birth of Christ and being with our family...

NEW YORK - A magazine gets a hot story straight from a soldier in Iraq and publishes his writing, complete with gory details, under a pseudonym. The stories are chilling: An Iraqi boy befriends American troops and later has his tongue cut out by insurgents. Soldiers mock a disfigured woman sitting near them in a dining hall. As a diversion, soldiers run over dogs with armored personnel carriers. Compelling stuff, and, according to the Army, not true. Three articles by the soldier have run since January in The New Republic, a liberal magazine with a small circulation owned by Canadian...

Digg.com reveals news stories fade after 1 hour 16:18 24 April 2007 NewScientist.com news service Belle Dumé Online news articles can lose their appeal in as little as an hour. That is the message from two statistical physicists who analysed the way people access information on the user-driven news site Digg.com. Fang Wu and Bernardo Huberman of HP Labs in Palo Alto, California, US, studied Digg in an effort to understand the way online news readers consume stories. Through a statistical analysis of the site, the researchers discovered that just a handful of stories hog most people's attention and most...

WASHINGTON, April 12, 2007 – It was supposed to be a routine security patrol in Mosul, Iraq, the Saturday before Thanksgiving, 2005. Army Pfc. Stephen Sanford and his fellow soldiers of the Company C, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, from Fort Wainwright, Alaska, planned to arrest suspected insurgents, take them back to the detention center and “relax, stretch out a bit.” Instead, squad members would find themselves in an intense firefight. “There was just this massive explosion,” Sanford said. “You could see flashes and automatic weapons fire. It was sensory overload. It was incredibly loud. You could smell the...

Gun ban groups often claim that private citizens rarely, if ever, use guns in self-defense. ABC News’ "20/20" is now putting that claim to the test, asking viewers to submit their own real-life "Armed Citizen" stories. ABC’s website asks: Have you ever defended yourself from a crime in your home, in your business, or in public by using a gun? Perhaps you warded off a potential attacker by simply showing a gun? If you’ve personally used a gun in a legitimate act of self-protection against a criminal attacker, we encourage you to tell your story to ABC News. To tell...

10 most underreported stories of 2006 WND readers, editors compile annual 'Operation Spike' list -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: January 3, 2007 The controversial movement to merge the U.S., Mexico and Canada into what critics call a "North American Union" – in the face of what is already a massive, national illegal immigration and border security crisis – tops the list of the 10 most "spiked" or underreported stories of the last year, according to an annual WND survey. At the end of each year, news organizations typically present their retrospective replays of what they consider to have been the top news stories...

Col. Hunt filling in for Howie today. Happy...Howie-Days! Read below for Howie's latest column...can I get me a huntin' license here?