Free Republic

If you don't have anything better to do, click here and add your name to the list of simpletons and sprout-eaters who plan to mark 9/11 by hugging each other. It's being visited by some skeptics at the moment, including Hillary (ho-hum). Read some of the dopey comments from genuine signers and tell 'em how you feel. http://worldpeace.org.au/readcyber.asp

A bitter court battle between a lesbian mother and the gay sperm donor father of her two-year-old son has ended in tragedy with the woman killing herself and the boy. The 40-year-old woman lost her fight to restrict the sperm donor father's access to the boy in the Family Court four months ago. She had argued that she and her lesbian partner were all the parents the boy needed and that the man had no right even to call himself a father. The court case caused a furore but Family Court Judge Paul Guest ruled it was in the boy's...

Serial gang rapists convicted By Martin Chulov, Iain Payten and Ian Gerard July 12, 2002 THEY were brought undone by the tools of their trade: the mobile phones they used to summons fellow rapists to attack terrified girls. Yesterday a 20-year-old Sydney man was found guilty of his role in a gang rape – his third conviction for leading a violent rampage through the city's southwest in 2000. His younger brother, 19, was convicted for delivering the victim to him at Gosling Park, Greenacre, on August 12, 2000. Together they were considered the worst of 18 offenders from a gang...

Why are netballers called "girls", why can't they wear shorts and why must they be "ladies" on court? It's all part of the netball holy grail - the sport's attempt to strive for the idealised feminine sportswoman. But the tired old stereotype is now under pressure. The latest edict from netball's keepers of the image is that mouthing the "f " word on court is out. Sent off the court out, that is. Not only that - apparently the ABC has agreed to edit out pictures of stray "f" mouthings so the audience doesn't get to see what the girl...

There are 800+ signatures on this screed saying Gore is the REAL president. If you have an idle moment, you might care to do some freeping by clicking on the above link.

Click on the link and you'll find a petition that right-thinking people might enjoy freeping. It's the usual anti-Israel swill as served up by a bunch of self-pleasuring Australian academics, but its drawing signatures from around the world. Get to it, Freepers. Let them know how you feel.

Abandoned baby 'adopted by chimps' April 15 2002 AFP A disabled Nigerian boy believed to have been adopted and raised by chimpanzees for 18 months is in care in a specialist children's home in this northern city. Named Bello by nursing staff at the Tudun Maliki Torrey home in Kano, he was brought to them six years ago by hunters after being found with a chimpanzee family in the Falgore forest, 150 kilometres south of Kano, according to staff. Believed to have been aged around two years when he was taken in, Bello is probably the son of nomadic ethnic...

<p>The unfolding scandal involving Global Crossing may be about to engulf an unlikely group: the U.S. labor movement. The labor connection involves a union-owned life insurance company that was one of the original investors in the fiber-optic outfit, providing some of initial seed money to Global founder Gary Winnick. It was a savvy deal for the unions that own the insurer, ULLICO Inc., earning the company a $500 million profit on a $7.6 million investment.........</p>

By Andy Butfoy March 14 2002 Reports that Washington has Russia, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria and China on a nuclear target list come as no surprise to strategic analysts. United States thinking on nuclear war is being driven by a predictable convergence between old Cold War habits and contemporary concerns over rogue states. Overlaying this is a mix of lingering US triumphalism after the collapse of the Soviet Union, together with the anxiety and self-righteousness that emerged after the terrorist strikes against Washington and New York. The US is not simply talking about deterring nuclear attacks. Washington has...

Sarasota businessman's GOP honor may go up in smoke By ROBERT ECKHART robert.eckhart@heraldtribune.com SARASOTA -- Businessman Chris Hill was in the running for Republican of the Year until Wednesday, when the GOP found out that he made his fortune selling the kind of pipes most commonly used by marijuana tokers. Hill, 30, was named last week one of 500 businessmen of 2001 by the National Republican Congressional Committee -- an honor that made him a candidate for the group's top award. No one at the committee had bothered to ask Hill what he made at his Central Avenue manufacturing plant. ...

Go to this California paper's collected Police Blotter Columns by clicking on the link above. Quite a few of the entries are laugh-out-loud funny, the following being just a random example from the most recent log: 8:49 p.m. As a woman cleaned the interior of her car at a Valley West car wash, she noticed a guy in a gray Taurus circling, stopping and leering at her as she assumed the ungainly positions required for auto vacuuming, making her uncomfortable. Police were called, the oglemobile roared away. There are hundreds more just like it.

Taking bribes helped my depression: detective A Sydney detective today told a NSW police corruption inquiry that accepting bribes had helped lift his depression. Detective Sergeant Mark Messenger said he had accepted "a couple of hundred dollars" on four occasions from undercover officer M5. Det Messenger, who is suspended from the police service, said he suffered from depression and taking the money made him feel better. "I was depressed," he told the Police Integrity Commission (PIC) Operation Florida inquiry. "For some reason it made me feel better. "It's something now I don't understand why I did it." Although the Dee ...

Newton man could not stop smoking in custody: Joseph Hall arrested, hid lighter in body cavity By DeAnna Putnam NEWTON - A local man was in court yesterday after going to the hospital over the weekend for medical complications resulting from hiding a cigarette lighter, and possibly a pack of cigarettes, in his body cavity after police arrested him Saturday. Police say they first took Joseph Hall, 40, of 138 Honeywell Ave., into protective custody for drunkenness Saturday afternoon. He was placed under arrest after police found he had a default warrant from Brookline District Court. The Newton Police station ...

Monday, January 21, 2002 SMALL TREES ARE PEOPLE, TOO: Julia Butterfly Hill, the brain-damaged Arkansas crank who spent two years living in a redwood tree named Luna, has become the toast of the radical environmental movement. Her credentials are impeccable. So far she's saved exactly one tree. Last year Butterfly Hill wrote a book – The Legacy of Luna – about her time in the tree. I wonder if she ever considers the tiny, unknown trees that gave their lives to become one of the 272 pages in Butterfly Hill's memoirs. Please, a moment of silence for Luna's brothers and ...

'US troops' invade island, claim witnesses Troops claiming to be US soldiers landed on the Comoran isle of Moheli early today, seizing control of the security forces on the island, a former prime minister said by phone. The invaders announced themselves as "the army of the United States" and said their intervention was linked to the fight against terrorism, said residents of the capital Fomboni, including ex-prime minister Mohamed Hassanari. Telephone links with the island were cut shortly afterwards. Around 100 armed men described as "white, some of them masked," disembarked at 5:30 am (1330 Australian Eastern Daylight Time). They ...

Children's heroes have a certain ring of racism Harry and the hobbits might be fun, but they should be recognised as appealing to the racist within us, writes Chris Henning. We are in deep Pottermania. No child is without its thick spectacles, pointed hat and moon-and-stars cloak. Other fantastic creatures are banging on the gates, demanding to be let in: orcs, elves, ents and the rest of Middle Earth are about to break through into our consciousness when the Lord of the Rings marketing blitz gets under way. Why this sudden bugaboo frenzy? And why now? The appeal of the ...

It was the first day of school and a new student named Suzuki, the son of a Japanese businessman, entered the fourth grade. The teacher said, "Let's begin by reviewing some American history. Who said "Give me Liberty, or give me Death?" She saw a sea of blank faces, except for Suzuki, who had his hand up. "Patrick Henry, 1775." he said. "Very good! Who said 'Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth'"? Again, no response except from Suzuki: "Abraham Lincoln, 1863.", said Suzuki. The teacher snapped at the class, "Class, ...

Comfort in whispered allegations... 03.11.2001 Last weekend, Watergate sleuth Bob Woodward broke a story that quoted anonymous sources as blaming rightwing extremists for the anthrax-tainted letters that have so far killed four people and bathed the US in a cold sweat. If foreign jihadists were not enough of a worry, it seemed that America had also to contend with a virulent fifth column of homegrown fanatics. Bad news? Well, yes - but, then again, not really. Oddly enough, given the hardening paranoia that now underscores every aspect of American life, those hints and whispered allegations against the loony, rabid ...

A Big Stinker A Channel 5 reporter confuses sewage with drinking water By Henry Walker After warning that terrorist saboteurs might try to poison Metro water with "anthrax" or "smallpox," WTVF-Channel 5 reporter Rob Manning thought he'd show viewers how easily that could happen by dramatically crawling under a wire fence just "a few hundred yards" from the city's "water supply." While the camera focused ominously on some large, nearby water tanks, Manning reported from inside the fence, "It's not too hard to crawl underneath.... It took me less than 20 seconds." Even Metro security guards appeared unconcerned at the ...

Con man missing with millions Date: 28/10/2001 By Matthew Benns Australian investors have lost $80million to a New York-based con man - but no authority in Australia is prepared to investigate the scam. Instead, the investors have had to hire their own solicitor and are relying on police in the US and New Zealand, and a private investigator, to get their money back. Solicitor Geoffrey Ripper is representing about 30 Australian investors and has taken out an injunction in a bid to freeze what is left of their money in a National Australia Bank account in Melbourne. "There is a ...