Free Republic

Barack Obama's speech on racial issues showed him at his best. Serious and inspiring, it was the finest speech on this crucial issue in many years. It was effective politically, too, since it staunched the bleeding. Unfortunately for Obama's candidacy, he has already suffered deep political wounds from his close association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and the damage cannot be undone. As effective as Obama's speech was, it still evaded the hardest questions, which will linger and rise again in the general election. It soared above the most divisive issue affecting racial politics today, affirmative action. Obama has spoken about...

Barack Obama says his grandmother is a typical white person, which in his words, means that if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know, she gets scared. He then explains that is the nature of race in our society. Virginian Pilot Editors: To Paraphrase Obama = "Typical White Liberals"Barack Obama was asked about his use of his white grandmother as an example of white racism. He replied "The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn't. But she is a typical white person who, uh, if she sees somebody on...

Just when it looked like the financial crisis couldn't get worse, Congressman Henry Waxman, among others, is threatening to mount an investigation into the collapse of Bear Stearns. He is alarmed over the Fed's role in facilitating the liquidation of the investment banking house and delivering its remains to J.P. Morgan Chase. To which we can only say that if Congress wants to find a scandal, the one to look at is the collapse not of Bear Stearns but of the dollar, which in the past seven years has plummeted to less than a 900th of an ounce of gold...

(BEIJING) - Reducing Beijing's rats, flies, mosquitoes and cockroaches has been placed "at the top of the agenda" by the city's pest-control experts to ensure no outbreaks during the Olympic Games, state media reported on Thursday. Beijing was confident of preventing and controlling outbreaks of pests during the Games, having hired U.S. experts and set up a "citywide surveillance network", Zeng Xiaotong, a disease control official under China's Ministry of Health, told the China Daily. "Since 2005, the Beijing Loving-Motherland Sanitation Movement Committee has called on sanitation workers and Beijing residents to kill pests and improve hygiene," Zeng said. "These...

... The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms requires the following items, Purchase Description Determined by Line Item, to the following: LI 001, EXACT MATCH ONLY - Leatherman Micra Color: Blue - Part number 64340101K Engraved with: ATF-Asset Forfeiture AND "always think forfeiture" PLEASE REFER TO THE ATTACHMENT. NOTE: ATF MAY REQUEST A SAMPLE TO DETERMINE IF IT MEETS OUR REQUIREMENT. A picture of the item may be substituted in place of the actual sample. ***Partial Shipments are allowed. Please use the space below to explain your delivery schedule. Preferred Delivery is between November 15th-23rd, NLT November 23rd***, 2000, EA;...

Two sisters from Virginia sold their Illinois-shaped corn flake on eBay Friday night for $1,350. "We were biting our nails all the way up to the finish, seeing what would happen," said Melissa McIntire, 23. "There's a lot of relief involved." The winner of the auction, which lasted more than a week, is the owner of a trivia Web site who wants to add the corn flake to a traveling museum.

This is really good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRbBJi0jfdU

Brushing aside calls for dialogue with the Dalai Lama, China has vowed to "crush" the "Tibet independence forces" as it raised to 19 the death toll in riots that rocked Lhasa last week during the most virulent anti-China protests in two decades. "China must resolutely crush the Tibet independence forces' conspiracy and sabotaging activities," the People's Daily, the official mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party�of China (CPC), said in its commentary on Saturday, effectively rejecting growing calls from the West for China to hold dialogue with the Dalai Lama to end the crackdown on agitators. "We must see through the...

Cyber Vigilantes Track Extremist Web Sites, Intelligence Experts Balk at Effort MIAMI, Fla. — While the debate grows on how to tackle global jihadism on the Internet, some security experts warn that "cyber vigilantes" — people who track and help shut down terror-related Web sites — are compromising government investigations with their amateur sleuthing tactics. Michael Radu, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and an expert on terror-related Web sites, said the government is already overburdened trying to monitor the thousands of sites on the Web believed to contain radical Muslim messages. These cyber vigilantes, he said,...

Hobbies provide a great way to relax from the daily grind. For many people, they also offer a way to make extra spending money. Be aware, however, that when your hobby produces income, you owe tax on it. Allowable hobby deductions You can reduce your taxable hobby income by deducting your hobby expenses, but this tax break is limited. You can only deduct expenses up to the amount of money you make on the hobby. Even then, hobby expenses, along with other miscellaneous expenses you itemize on Schedule A, must come to more than 2 percent of your adjusted gross...

My video to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Israel, with a reenactment of the Temple. GOD BLESS ISRAEL

Can we as a sector of the political spectrum come to a consenses on a canidate for president? I believe we have squandered our opportunity to influence this election by not actively supporting the candidate that best represented conservative positions - and so we were appointed John Mccain. Now believe me, given the alternatives of Barack/Hillery, I do hope that JM wins, but he will have to do it without my vote. I believe that with the numbers FR reaches, that we could still make a difference if we could only agree - and throw our support behind a candidate...

Oklahoma state lawmaker Sally Kern has had to obtain legal representation in the wake of a barrage of tens of thousands of hate-filled emails and threatened lawsuits after she spoke publicly about the dangers of the radical homosexual agenda. During a recent speech at a Republican club meeting, Sooner State Representative Sally Kern said she was concerned that the homosexual agenda would destroy the nation and that the threat the movement poses is as big a threat to the nation as terrorism. She also told how young public school children are being indoctrinated into believing that the homosexual lifestyle is...

If you don’t think climate change produces winners as well as losers, consider this: In the 12th and 13th centuries England exported wine to France. Vineyards also flourished in improbable regions like southern Norway and eastern Prussia. A centuries-long spell of mild, predictable weather blessed Western Europe with abundant crops, healthy populations and budget surpluses sufficient to finance projects like Chartres Cathedral. This is the credit side of a global balance sheet carefully itemized by Brian Fagan in “The Great Warming,” his fascinating account of shifting climatic conditions and their consequences from about A.D. 800 to 1300, often referred to...

Ten days have passed since Governor Spitzer's resignation, and events seem to be running even further ahead than expected. When David Paterson was sworn in as the 55th governor of New York State, he received an enthusiastic reception from a joint session of the legislature. His speech was considered a success, demonstrating awareness of the state's acute financial crisis but not describing specific reductions. What we did not know was that a few hours later, the new governor and his wife would hold a press conference dealing with mutual marital infidelity for two years at the turn of the century....

With Richardson now backing Obama, I was just wondering what the over/under is on a new scandal in terms of days or months that involve him.. Any ideas?

Towing the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy to Philadelphia for storage has proved to be a complex ordeal. There's only a 20-minute window each day when it can be safely eased alongside Pier 4 in South Philadelphia, where it will be stored. That's the daylight high tide, when the swift current is slack. High winds kept the big ship at sea Thursday and yesterday, with its small crew of line handlers camped out on the vast empty and cold ship. The Kennedy was scheduled to enter the Delaware Bay at 9 last night and begin a slow 18-hour trek to...

Gov. Paterson is reimbursing his state Senate campaign for stays at a Manhattan hotel, as his aides revealed he'd also improperly used the account to buy suits, furniture and a dinner with his dad. The new revelations came during an hourlong briefing with reporters, in which the aides struggled to explain numerous questionable charges to Paterson's accounts from campaign accounts. Those include payments to a Quality Inn on the West Side where Paterson has admitted to bringing an extramarital lover - and to sometimes using his campaign credit card when his own didn't work. Paterson is repaying $252 for two...

A Japanese doctor says, "Medicine in my country is so advanced that we can take a liver out of one man, put it into another, and have him out looking for work in six weeks." A German doctor says, "That is nothing. We can take a lung out of one person, put it into another, and have him out looking for work in four weeks." A British doctor says, "In my country, medicine is so advanced that we can take half a heart out of one person, put it in another, and have both of them out looking for work...

The Barack Obama campaign may find itself back in hot water, but this time squarely with Democrats, thanks to one of their premier surrogates. Former Air Force Chief of Staff General Tony McPeak compared a relatively mild Bill Clinton statement to McCarthyism. His remarks about the former President and actual party elder will no doubt stoke outrage just as some of Obama’s other troubles had begun to recede: A retired Air Force general compared former President Clinton to Joseph McCarthy, the 1950s communist-hunting senator, on Friday after Clinton seemed to question Democrat Barack Obama’s patriotism.Merrill “Tony” McPeak, a former chief...