Free Republic

LISBON (Reuters) - Portuguese police arrested 15 Arabs on Friday in Porto, the city that hosts the first game of the Euro 2004 football championships on Saturday, police said. The arrests "were related to something international, but I don't know what", a police spokesman said. Private TSF radio quoted police as saying there were signs five of the people, who come from various Arab countries, had links to a terrorist cell. The arrests were a joint operation by the investigative Judiciary Police and Portugal's Security Intelligence Service (SIS). Publico newspaper reported that SIS received a warning from Dutch intelligence about...

For those who are lucky to still be blessed with your Mom this is beautiful.For those who aren't, this is even more beautiful.The young mother set her foot on the path of life."Is this the long way?" she asked.And the guide said "Yes, and the way is hard. And you will be old before you reach the end of it. But the end will be better than the beginning." But the young mother was happy, and she would not believe that anything could be better than these years. So she played with her children, she fed them and bathed them,...

'Aznar called it right,' Italian leader asserts ROME As investigations into the deadly bombings in Madrid continued to point Wednesday toward Islamic extremists, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy roundly accused the Basque separatist movement ETA of involvement. "I am convinced that Aznar called it right," said Berlusconi, a staunch ally of the outgoing prime minister of Spain, José María Aznar, whose party was trounced in the general election last Sunday. Spanish public opinion turned against Aznar's government after it appeared to rush to blame ETA for the attacks despite evidence pointing to the involvement of Islamic extremists intent on...

Australian investigative journalist John Pilger says he has evidence the war against Iraq was based on a lie which could cost George W Bush and Tony Blair their jobs and bring Prime Minister John Howard down with them. A television report by Pilger aired on British screens last night said US Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice confirmed in early 2001 that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had been disarmed and was no threat. But after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11 that year, Pilger claimed Rice said the US "must...

Sorry to post this vanity but I was in Chicago's Union Station on Friday 12/7 and saw two guys, one with a "Sore Loserman" T-shirt. This was in Amtrak's First Class Passenger lounge. I meant to go up and introduce myself but I was talking to a pretty girl at the time and when I looked around later you guys were gone. Since this was a "First Class" lounge area I assume you guys were Freepers. I did get the pretty girl's phone number so it was not a total loss. She was a liberal girl from Oakland (CA) but ...

GM AGREES TO SELL HUGHES UNIT TO ECHOSTAR FOR $25.8 BILLION NEW YORK, Oct 28 (Reuters) - General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM - news) on Sunday agreed to sell its satellite television unit Hughes Electronics Corp. for $25.8 billion in cash and shares to EchoStar Communications Corp. , sources familiar with the negotiations told Reuters. One person told Reuters that the decision to sell Hughes, the owner of satellite television service provider DirectTV to Echostar was taken at a board meeting which started at 5 p.m. (2200 GMT) in New York and it is still going on. ``Most of the details ...

Excerpts (partial text) from the Washington Post article: The U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether restrictions on ticket sales to fans of other national soccer teams playing at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium violated federal civil rights laws, officials said yesterday. Most recently, Honduran fans complained that they were denied tickets for good seats at last Saturday's World Cup qualifying match between the United States and Honduras. Many Hondurans, including the ambassador, said the U.S. Soccer Federation and D.C. United, whose office handled ticket sales, denied them access to seats closest to the field when they identified themselves as native ...

Researchers predict that 41 percent of HIV in San Francisco will be drug-resistant by 2005 August 31, 2001 WASHINGTON (AP) - The share of HIV infections that are drug-resistant will jump to 42 percent in San Francisco by 2005, according to a team of researchers. Estimating the current rate of drug resistance at 28.5 percent, the group used a mathematical formula to calculate its likely increase over the next few years. HIV, human immunodeficiency virus, is the agent that causes AIDS. The work of the team, led by Dr. Sally M. Blower of the University of California at Los Angeles, ...

Well, the Supreme Court ruling is in and it's a 5-4 decision to end the recounts. Let's evaluate the records of how the Justices voted and which President appointed them: Reagan 3-0 (Scalia, O'Connor, Kennedy) Nixon 1-0 (Rehnquist) Bush 1-1 (Thomas, Souter) Ford 0-1 (Stevens) Clinton 0-2 (Ginsburg, Breyer)

Fox News just announced that the FLSC will have an announcement at 4:30pm about the Seminole/Martin absentee cases. Not sure if they have already accepted the case and this is a ruling, or if they will only announce if they are accepting the appeals.

Pat Caddell is up next on Hardball after the 5:45pm EST commercial on MSNBC. Heads up!

Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes will be holding a press conference at 2pm to talk about the discarded military ballots AND about allegations that FELONS were voting in the Florida election. Stay tuned.

Just before the Jim Baker news conference, MSNBC began a report on the overseas absentee ballots. They said Dade County has 75 overseas ballots to be counted thus far. Most importantly, they said the makeup of those 75 ballots is: 46 REGISTERED REPUBLICANS, 10 REGISTERED DEMOCRATS, AND 19 INDEPENDENTS. This is great news. They cut away to go to the Baker press conference right before they were going to discuss other counties, but they may resume this report any time now. Tune into MSNBC.

Pat Caddell on MSNBC's Hardball right now: "What's happening is they're trying to steal the election by going into four counties where they know it's heavily Democratic". This is a good guy to have on our side. Tune in to Hardball now.

Pat Caddell has been an amazing breath of fresh air to listen to on MSNBC. Last night, he was vehement that MSNBC called Florida too soon. He was brilliant all night, an honest and fair liberal in a sea of dishonesty. Right now, on Chris Matthews' Hardball, he is pretty much coming out and saying Gore should do the right thing and concede after the recount. It would be the right thing for the country.

Did anyone else notice that nationally Bush's lead has shrunk to 26,000 with 95% reporting? With California still counting votes it looks like Gore make take the overall vote.

In today's DETROIT FREE PRESS, mired back on Page 9, is a story that Geoffrey Fieger mentioned three times on his radio show that Bush had a DUI on his record. The first time Fieger told this information was on July 9th of this year and twice subsequently. When the Free Press asked Fieger how he had this information he said someone in Washington DC told him. Fieger is famous for being Jack Kevorkian's lawyer and the Democratic nominee for Governor a couple of years back. This story is being talked about right now on the John McCollough radio show ...

About 30 states or so have been declared a long time ago for one or the other candidates. The other 20 either lean one way or are tossups. I'm interested in people predicting an upset from one of the 30 supposed LOCK states. Tossups do not count, so don't make a prediction like you think Bush will have an upset win in PA. PA is a tossup. I'll go first. It's a small state, but I'm predicting a shocking upset win for Bush in the state of VERMONT. Vermont has long been considered a shoo-in for Gore but I think ...

USA Today

"You're an idiot, Al Gore" Some highlights from the article: I think it’s time to abandon the universal conventional wisdom that it’s Bush the lightweight airhead versus Gore the heavyweight intellect. Yes, George Bush is a lightweight–but Al Gore is a heavyweight intellect in much the same way that Alec Baldwin is a heavyweight intellect (in fact, in exactly the same way). Al Gore is the D.C. equivalent of that oxymoronic phenomenon, the Hollywood intellectual: someone who reads a couple of books of lit-ra-chure in a town where everyone else in effect reads "coverage," and who thereby elevates himself in ...