Free Republic

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice braved anti-war protestors and hecklers during a friendly visit to the heart of Britain, Washington's staunch ally. Some 200 opponents of the US-led war in Iraq protested her visit Friday to Blackburn in northwest England, after two dozen anti-war protestors greeted her upon arrival in nearby Liverpool from Paris on Thursday night. "Condoleezza Rice, Go home!" many chanted when Rice, using a side door, entered a high school in Blackburn, the home town of her host, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who visited her home state of Alabama last year. "Hey, hey Condi Rice, how...

--Card has friends across the aisle-- WASHINGTON -- When Philip Johnston, chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, visited his old friend Andrew Card at the White House a few weeks ago, Card made a point of introducing him to stunned White House staffers who couldn't believe that these two ideological opponents remained close friends. "He gets a charge out of it," Johnston said with a laugh. It is one of those quirks of Card's life that even in hyperpolarized Washington, Card is well liked across the aisle, especially among those who share his Massachusetts roots. Yet for five years as...

A scientific study pinpoints 20 areas in the world where animals are not at immediate risk of extinction, but where the risk is likely to arise soon. The regions include Greenland and the Siberian tundra, Caribbean islands and parts of South East Asia. The London-based research team believes its work will help conservationists prevent extinctions through early intervention - prevention, not cure. It is reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The study concentrates on a concept called "latent extinction risk". This means animals are not under threat right now, and may not be classified as in...

--Candidate says he has what it takes to run-- With the Democratic primary heating up, Deval Patrick has stressed that he will have the funds to wage a credible campaign in what is expected to be the state's most expensive gubernatorial election ever. Patrick is assuring supporters he has the personal assets to compete, as he takes on an incumbent attorney general with a bulging campaign account, and possibly a deep-pocketed venture capitalist. Indeed, after a lengthy career at private law firms, the US Justice Department, and as counsel to major corporations, Patrick has considerable resources. But he also has...

--Decision seen hurting Healey-- Bolting from the Republican Party, wealthy businessman Christy Mihos said yesterday he will run for governor as an independent, a decision that delivers a blow to GOP chances of victory in November. Mihos concluded that the Republican Party establishment and its party rules for qualifying for the ballot were stacked against him, said a Mihos adviser who asked not to be named. Christy Mihos (right), Deval Patrick, and Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey at a Massachusetts Biotechnology Council gubernatorial forum yesterday. (David L. Ryan/ Globe Staff) Mihos's presence on the November ballot is widely expected to draw...

BOSTON --Congressional language that could kill a wind farm proposed off Cape Cod prompted Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick to lash out Friday at Gov. Mitt Romney, Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey and Attorney General Tom Reilly. Patrick, a Democrat running for governor along with Healey and Reilly, chastised them and Romney for not opposing language that would restrict wind farms near shipping lanes. The measure, part of an $8.7 billion Coast Guard reauthorization bill, is being considered by a House-Senate conference committee that has been meeting in private. Patrick favors the Cape Wind project, and said the silence by Romney,...

A Cardrona Valley ratepayers and residents association survey had come out in unanimous support of the valley's iconic bra fence to stay as it is, chairman John Scurr said yesterday. A letter from the association asking that the bra fence be allowed to stay would be on Queenstown Lakes District Mayor Clive Geddes's desk today, Mr Scurr said. "We've asked for it to stay as long as there is some caretaking of the fence. We don't want it getting higher, longer or suddenly being filled with boots and knickers as well. But it should stay because it's become part of...

--Conan O'Brien seeks sauna inspector position for his Halonen endorsement-- American comic and talk-show host Conan O'Brien made landfall in Finland on Saturday, starting a five-day visit that has been trumpeted for days on end on his Late Night With Conan O'Brien. The show is aired on NBC and relayed - at a few days' delay - to Finnish audiences via the teens & young adults cable/digital entertainment channel, subTV. The size of the crowd waiting to catch a glimpse of Conan O'Brien left the organisers open-mouthed. Police estimated that around 2,000 people packed in front of the VIP terminal...

Duluth, MN-Sunday's edition of The Family Circus incited violent riots among white people because of the introduction of a new playmate for Billy named Mohammed. To better understand why mobs have formed, psychologist Cliff Stevens explained, "For over 40 years, The Family Circus has never had a person of color in its sweet glaze of homogeneity. It's been the only whitebread refuge left in our society; the last stronghold of the innocent past. When confronted by today's moral ambiguity, we could always turn to that place frozen in the glorious time of the 50's. A time before those unnecessary civil...

Harper Lee wrote one of the great works of American literature and is portrayed in two new Hollywood movies. Now her friendship with high school pupils has led her to talk publicly for the first time since 1964, writes Paul Harris. snip In one of the strangest twists in the history of American literature, Lee has now emerged from her home in the small town of Monroeville, Alabama, for a brief moment in the spotlight. Lee has regularly turned down every interview request for decades but now, aged 79, has been tempted out of her shell by the University of...

In caucus, leads Reilly almost 2-1. In his first test as a candidate for governor, political newcomer Deval Patrick scored a sweeping victory at Democratic caucuses yesterday, trouncing Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, a two-term statewide office holder. Delegate slates pledged to Patrick, the former top federal civil rights prosecutor and business executive, rolled up margins at local party meetings that will give him close to a 2-to-1 advantage over Reilly in the count of committed delegates, according to several Democratic Party strategists around the state.

ALBUQUERQUE Jan 6, 2006 — A panel of linguists has decided the word that best reflects 2005 is "truthiness," defined as the quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts. The American Dialect Society chose the word Friday after a runoff with terms related to Hurricane Katrina, such as "Katrinagate," the scandal erupting from the lack of planning for the monster hurricane. Michael Adams, a professor at North Carolina State University who specializes in lexicology, said "truthiness" means "truthy, not facty." "The national argument right now is, one, who's got the truth and,...

Children's health will be put at risk from passive smoking if the government bans smoking in all restaurants and bars, according to dramatic new research out today. The study, which will provoke fresh controversy over whether a partial ban would be the better option, concluded that parents, particularly poorer ones, who are prevented from smoking in bars tend to smoke more in front of their children at home. Passive smoking has been linked to breathing difficulties and asthma among children.[snip] [Researchers] concluded that parents smoke more at home if they are prevented from lighting up in bars or restaurants. The...

A road ramp that uses passing cars to generate power has been developed. Dorset inventor Peter Hughes' Electro-Kinetic Road Ramp creates around 10kW of power each time a car drives over its metal plates. More than 200 local authorities had expressed an interest in ordering the £25,000 ramps to power their traffic lights and road signs, Mr Hughes said. The ramps generate up to 50kW of power. Around 300 jobs are due to be created in Somerset for a production run of 2,000 ramps next year. Plates in the ramp move up and down as vehicles pass over them, driving...

Bolivians have begun casting ballots in an election that could pick the country's first indigenous president and give South America another leftist, anti-US leader. About 3.6 million voters will also renew the 130 deputies and 27 senators of the legislature and choose, for the first time, nine provincial governors. Sale of alcohol has been banned in Bolivia since Friday and 50,000 police and soldiers have been deployed around the landlocked Andean country, roughly twice the size of France, to promote calm on polling day Sunday. Outgoing President Eduardo Rodriguez said that "after the campaigning, the polls and the speeches in...

A first group of UN peacekeepers expelled from Eritrea left the UN headquarters in Asmara enroute to Addis Ababa. The group of about 20, including a woman in tears, boarded a bus at the UN Mission to Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) offices in Asmara that headed to the airport for a temporary relocation in the Ethiopian capital. A UN official, who asked to remain anonymous, said the team was relocating ahead of the Friday deadline imposed by Eritrean authorities. They are expected to board three flights, the first one taking off at 11:00 am (0800 GMT), then 11:30 am and...

They’re shaking things up at the Boston Globe — bringing in a small-town executive to help fix the big-city newspaper’s troubles. The Boring Broadsheet yesterday shifted President Richard Daniels to business development for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, the freebie Metro and other entities owned by Globe parent New York Times Co. To replace him, the paper tapped Mary Jacobus, president and CEO of Indiana’s Fort Wayne Newspapers Inc. Jacobus currently oversees two Fort Wayne, Ind., newspapers: the News-Sentinel and Journal-Gazette — both much smaller than the Globe. The papers have a combined 99,000 weekday circulation vs. 414,000 at the...

Hey, Dr. Meir Stampfer of Harvard — this Bud’s for you! The renowned chairman of Harvard’s epidemiology department has been moonlighting for Anheuser-Busch — traveling to events across the country touting the “health” benefits of swigging beer. Stampfer’s next stop on the party train was a beer tasting luncheon scheduled for tomorrow at Boston’s upscale Radius restaurant — but he abruptly canceled late yesterday. While studies claim that moderate drinking — two drinks a day — can lower the risk of heart disease and reduce the risk of stroke and diabetes, substance abuse counselors say cheerleading the benefits of booze...

Former Minnesota Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy, who galvanized legions of youth in a campaign which unnerved a sitting president in 1968 and forced the Democratic Party to take seriously his message against the Vietnam War, died yesterday. He was 89. McCarthy died in his sleep at assisted living home in the Georgetown neighborhood where he had lived for the past few years, said his son, Michael. “He was a brave and courageous person who was very true to his ideals,” said Mary Murphy, a retired Framingham State College professor, who traveled extensively with McCarthy as he challenged President Lyndon B....

After 80 years in Hundred Acre Wood Winnie the Pooh is to get a female friend, replacing Christopher Robin, according to reports. The Walt Disney Company has decided to pair Pooh up with a red-haired six-year-old tomboy for its 2007 series, newspaper USA Today reported. Disney said My Friends Tigger and Pooh will keep the "trust, friendship and happiness" of AA Milne's stories. Pooh is being re-branded as part of its 80th anniversary celebrations. Active side "We got raised eyebrows even in-house at first, but the feeling was these timeless characters really needed a breath of fresh air that only...