Free Republic

ISLAMABAD — Romance is not dead in Pakistan, but it’s under attack. Conservatives in Pakistan tacked up posters urging people to boycott Valentine’s Day on Thursday, saying it’s a western-inspired event that’s spreading vulgarity in their country. Romantics fought back with an arsenal of flowers, pink teddy bears and heart-shaped balloons. “Here in this part of Pakistan we are faced with bomb blasts, and we don’t have much opportunity to enjoy and celebrate so to me it is one of those few occasions to celebrate,” said Taimur Hassan, a 29-year-old man working in the northwestern city of Peshawar. He was...

Canadians now require an international driving permit in addition to their provincial licences while driving in Florida after a state law quietly went into effect on New Year’s Day. With March break just weeks away, CAA is alerting motorists about the change as it lobbies Florida state lawmakers to exclude Canadians from the rule, which applies to all non-U.S. residents. It is estimated that millions of Canadians visit Florida each year. Florida passed the law so that its law-enforcement officials would not encounter driver’s licence documents in languages they could not read, according to CAA. Despite its position on the...

Fiscal conservatives unwittingly sabotage themselves by warning that the $16.5 trillion national debt will impoverish America’s children and deliver unborn grandkids directly into Chinese slavery. While these dire predictions may come true, calling America’s massive indebtedness a challenge for future generations triggers relaxation about an immediate priority: curtailing federal spending and borrowing. By defending “the children,” budget hawks let big spenders invoke Scarlett O’Hara to justify their profligacy, at least until the tykes mature. “Cut the budget later,” spendthrifts propose. “Tomorrow is another day.” Unfortunately, annual deficits and the accumulated national debt are harming American adults right now. Uncle Sam...

Sometimes people don't appreciate flattery. They are so engrossed in their own grossly skewed view of the world that their sense of humor flies into the night like a married lover late home for dinner. How else can one explain the quite bizarre intentions of Georgia state Rep. Earnest Smith? He clearly sees a vast importance in being Earnest. He clearly believes that his constituents are so drawn to his Earnestness that anything that deviates it from absolute Earnestness deserves the full metal force of the law. Which is why he wants to make lewd, coarse, filthy Photoshopping illegal and...

From his very first state-of-the-union utterance last night, associating himself with President Kennedy, President Obama got it wrong, and it was mostly downhill from there: “51 years ago,” he began, “John F. Kennedy declared to this chamber that ‘the Constitution makes us not rivals for power but partners for progress.’” Great alliteration; bad constitutionalism. Yes, in a very narrow sense the Constitution makes the political branches partners for progress. But it also, most definitely, makes the branches, and those with authority within them, rivals for power. Indeed, throughout the Federalist Papers we learn how the Constitution pits power against power...

Happy Valentines Day. I have the best wife that anyone could want. Surely I am not alone. Come on, Freeper guys, tell me if you have a great bride and why. Freeper ladies, you are invited to participate also.

Reid has 57 votes for cloture. Collins of Maine is one of two R's supporting cloture but claims she'll vote "no" on floor vote, when her vote will make no difference. What a coward.

Has anyone been watching this show? Last nite at 10:00 EST would have been the third installment. I'm curious what others around here think of it but I'd rather not come out and say what I'm thinking just yet. (Hint: Posted in chit/chat maybe for a reason.)

When I heard about the cancelled tour due to a hip injury my first thought was “oh oh, there goes the ski vacation.” Thankfully I heard wrong, it was Lady Gaga, not Lady M, with hip issues. So I think we can assume that the traditional President’s week trip to an unnamed luxurious resort is still on.  I do know that Big Guy is going golfing with the boys in the swanky West Palm area, where just about everyone can afford to pay a little bit more. (snip)Today’s challenge: name the number of problems that Big Guy identified in the SOTU...

President Obama's greatest strategic accomplishment during his first term was his recruitment of big business to join the existing collection of special interest groups within the Democratic Party. The national impact of Obama's collusion with big business can't be overlooked. Big business helped deliver his biggest political achievement, ObamaCare, and it recently contributed to his victories with the fiscal cliff negotiations and the temporary extension of the debt ceiling. The addition of huge corporate lobbying infrastructures to the existing left-wing coalition of unions, environmental activists, minority and feminist interest groups will fundamentally transform the special interest lobbying force in Washington....

LA Police Chief Charlie Beck has made a bad decision. Life is a series of decisions. No one should understand this more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck. For obvious reasons, in any situation your ideal position is one of “win or break even.” Those who are in the public area, especially big city police chiefs, more often than not find themselves in the opposite position; “lose or break even,” but that’s part of the job. Since the “lose or break even” dilemma is virtually unavoidable as a rule, voluntarily placing yourself in one is especially foolish. When the...

The beginning of my religious conversion was a lonely time for me. I'd spent my whole life as an outsider to Christian circles, and it was hard to imagine that I could ever be comfortable being one of them, the Christians, the people whom I had firmly categorized in my mind as "Other." I'd come to believe in God on an intellectual level, yet I felt stuck, unable to move forward from there. Years of looking down on the entire concept of religion left me with a lingering impression that Christians and Christian culture were different from anything I'd ever...

Media mogul Donald Trump slammed Beyonce's Super Bowl performance as 'ridiculous' and inappropriate. Appearing on the 'Howard Stern Show,' Trump said the singer was too 'suggestive' for a national audience. 'When Beyonce was thrusting her hips forward in a very suggestive manner, if someone else would have done that it would have been a national scandal,' Trump, 66, said. 'I thought it was ridiculous ... I thought it was not appropriate.' Trump said he thought it was strange that no one else has criticized her for her scandalous dance moves. 'There's been no mention of it,' he said. 'So obviously,...

(Vatican Radio) Pope Benedict XVI has met parish priests and clergy of the Diocese of Rome in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican. Led by Cardinal Vicar Agostino Vallini and auxiliary bishops, they greeted Benedict XVI with great affection and prolonged applause"It is a special and providential gift of - began the Pope - that, before leaving the Petrine ministry, I can once again meet my clergy, the clergy of Rome. It' s always a great joy to see how the Church lives, and how in Rome, the Church is alive: there are pastors who in the spirit of...

Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee athlete who became famous as the 'Blade Runner' when he competed in the 2012 Olympic Games, has been charged with the murder of his girlfriend after model Reeva Steenkamp was shot inside his South African home. Steenkamp, a model who spoke out on Twitter against rape and abuse of women, was shot four times in the predawn hours in the home, in a gated community in the capital, Pretoria, police said.

Apex, North Carolina --(Ammoland.com)- New York State has recently passed the NY SAFE Act, which prohibits law-abiding New York citizens from purchasing and using many of the most common rifles, handguns, and shotguns in the United States, along with most standard magazines made for these firearms. The law, rammed through the New York legislature in roughly 30 hours before the legislators themselves or the general public could respond, is a blatant violation of the New York State Constitution. A plain, common-sense reading of the recent Heller decision also shows that the NY SAFE Act is also a blatant and purposefully...

In what appears to be an attempt to convince the world that it's ready to play with the big boys when it comes to military prowess, Iran unveiled the Qaher-313, a "super jet" with "state-of-the-art" technologies and "radar-evading" capabilities. The only problem? It's totally, completely, fake. And now it comes with a fake photoshopped background, too.

A week after Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, stated that the Obama administration’s most recent “compromise” on the HHS mandate fails to preserve the religious liberty of Catholic individuals and Catholic institutions, the president of the Catholic Health Association (CHA) stated that the proposal represents “substantial progress.” “The structures that HHS intends to use to provide contraceptive services to employees of non-profit religious organizations have yet to be finalized, especially for those who are self-insured,” said Sister Carol Keehan, who revealed that “we have been asked by HHS to evaluate three possible...

Sure, conservatives know that liberals want ever-bigger government. But the left is normally shy about its ambitions. Witness President Obama's laughable claim in this week's State of the Union: "It is not a bigger government we need, but a smarter government that sets priorities and invests in broad-based growth." So there's something bracing about a liberal boldly, baldly, embracing bigger government. In his New York Times column of today entitled "The Real Obama", Charles Blow clearly sees through the president's misleading rhetoric. Blow knows what Obama is really after—and celebrates it: "Is this the real Barack Obama? I hope so....