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WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 - Vast numbers of protesters from around the country poured onto the lawns behind the White House on Saturday to demonstrate their opposition to the war in Iraq, pointedly directing their anger at President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. A sea of anti-administration signs and banners flashed back at a long succession of speakers, who sharply rebuked the administration for continuing a war that has cost the lives of nearly 2,000 Americans and many more Iraqis. Many of the speakers also charged Mr. Bush with squandering resources that could have been used to aid people affected...

Kerry's mistatement last night on marriage betrayed the shoddy job that's been done to Americanize him for the average voter. When referring to his marriage to Mrs. Heinz, he used the phrase "marrying up." What he meant to say was "trading up." Marrying up is when someone marries a woman far superior to himself socially. Trading up is when a man dumps one woman for a far wealthier one. John, we expect better speechification from a president. Go back to school, boy!

IN ENEMY TERRITORY: WATCHING THE DEBATE IN A NYC EAST VILLAGE BAR [Posted Friday, Oct. 1, 2004] Last night I watched the debate with a group of rabid, Kerry lovers in a bar in the East Village. My local Young Republican Club very smartly organized a party with both Democrats and Republicans to gather around eight to ten large televisions in San Marcos Bar and Restaurant on Saint Marks Place. This was, to put it bluntly, humbling and painful. Imagine listening to liberals -- already hungry for red meat -- howling and jeering at everything Bush said, catching every nuance...

WHY NOT BLOG ON OUR FR HOMEPAGES? [Posted Thursday, Sept. 30, 2004] Has it occurred to anyone else that our homepages here at FreeRepublic are the perfect places to blog? They are relatively easy to edit, they have unique URLs which are easy to share and remember, and they are not dependent on being pinged by others. They depend only on what other blogs depend -- the ability to post regularly and stand out from the crowd. I would like to encourage my fellow Freepers, especially the more prolific and well-known one, to give this a try. Perhaps one day...

September 29, 2004 To my neighbors on 118th Street: I hope this letter finds you well. Please vote for George W. Bush on November 2. He is a good president, a good man, and our country needs him right now. I realize this letter may reach some Democrats, some Republicans, and some independent voters, and that many of you may already have your mind made up about this election. But take a moment to consider the following: · We only have two choices in this election, Bush and Kerry. · Neither of these men is perfect – both have faults...

My brother passed along the following John Kerry joke. It is one of the only Kerry jokes I've heard, so if you have any others, post them here: "JOHN KERRY IS A SAINT" John Kerry recently asked his priest to make an announcement from the pulpit during mass that 'John Kerry is a saint.' He thought it might help his bad image with Catholics and assist him in getting elected. The priest was taken aback by the request, and couldn't think of a rebuttal. Having nothing to say, he let Kerry go his own way, then went home and prayed...

Julia Child, who mastered the art of French cooking well enough to turn it into prime-time entertainment and who by introducing cassoulet to a casserole culture elevated both American food and television, died today at her home in Santa Barbara, Calif. She would have been 92 on Sunday. She had been suffering from kidney failure, said a niece, Philadelphia Cousins. As a cookbook author first and public television star second, Mrs. Child was a towering figure on the culinary front for more than 40 years. Most Americans knew her as the unflappable "French Chef," a tall and twinkly character who...

LONDON, April 1 — The dowager Viscountess Dilhorne, who trained pigeons to carry secret communications from Europe in World War II, died on March 25. She was 93. Her son, John, Viscount Dilhorne, told of her death, at her home in Northamptonshire, in central England. In World War II, Mary Manningham-Buller — as she was known before her husband was given a title — trained carrier pigeons in a small village in Oxfordshire, west of London. Secret agents and resistance fighters in Europe used them to communicate with London. The birds flew back to Mrs. Manningham-Buller with coded messages strapped...

How would you like to send a message to the corrupt bureaucrats running the U.N.? We all know that the Iraq Oil For Food program was hijacked by greedy U.N. officials and their world leader friends. To protest this, I would like to propose the following: U.N. FOOD FOR OIL PROGRAM Let's start dropping off bags of groceries at the U.N. on Manhattan's West Side. Let's also find out where the embassies of their friends are, and drop off bags of groceries there, as well. Pack some plain brown grocery bags neatly with lots of cheap, starchy foods and canned...

ALPINE, Tex., Feb. 16 — The first indication that Dr. Larry J. Sechrest's neighbors and students had read his article titled "A Strange Little Town in Texas" was when he began receiving death threats and obscene phone calls and his house was vandalized. The article by Dr. Sechrest, an economics professor at Sul Ross State University, was published in the January issue of Liberty, a small libertarian magazine with a circulation of about 10,000 and only two local subscribers, one of whom is Dr. Sechrest. But it was weeks before people heard about it in remote Alpine, which is three...

Fellow Freepers, Search for Ann Coulter's latest column, and you'll find she has catapulted herself into a more wonderfully outrageous category of originality and wit. She's done it with one catch phrase: "Jock sniffer. Please don't ask me what it means. I can't imagine what it means and I'm not sure I want to try. I'd rather leave this to many more, smarter, Freepers out there in America Land. Let's focus on this question: What, exactly, in the contect of Ann's most recent column, does this phrase (which I dare not type again) mean? Explain it for us in the...

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Recently I visited a rather lame anti-Bush site. It was selling T-shirts and caps with anti-Bush slogans. One of the slogans actually made me laugh. It reads: FOUR MORE WARS! I fully support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Furthermore, I would, on general principle, support more wars in the Middle East. We need to depose as many dictators and Saudi princes as we can. The world would be a better, safer place. I know the left hates this idea, but it's time they grew up and dealt with life. The entire free world should rise...

It's time for CELEBRITY ANAGRAMS, and everyone can play. Today's subject: Michael Jackson. Rearrange the letters and win a prize. I'll start: MICHAEL JACKSON = JAIL CAN SHOCK ME Now, come up with your own.

- EXCERPT - Gore Signs On to New Campaign FOR Al Gore, a politician so famously interested in both the environment and technology, the offer to serve on the advisory board of Falcon Waterfree Technologies must have been hard to resist. "He is very concerned about the world water situation and the crisis that the U.N. is predicting — that by 2026, the world demand for water will outstrip the world's supply by 56 percent," said James Krug, president of the company's international division.

Taking time out from the war on terror and the war on drugs, President Bush, to the purple born, has declared war on cleaning ladies. The agents of his wrath swooped down on 61 Wal-Mart stores in 21 states where men and women from South America and Eastern Europe toiled at minimum-wage jobs mopping floors and cleaning toilets until Bush closed them down. One wonders if the president remembers the words of the man whom he once cited as his role model: “That which you do to the least of these, you do to me.” Perhaps the president and all...

Of all the former ``Saturday Night Live'' stars, Dennis Miller probably can boast the most varied career. The comedian who never met an esoteric metaphor he didn't like went from hosting ``Weekend Update'' on ``SNL'' to starring in his own HBO series to spending two years in the ``Monday Night Football'' announcers' box.

Franco Corelli, the Italian tenor whose powerhouse voice, charismatic presence and movie-star good looks earned him the adoration of opera fans from the 1950's until his retirement in 1976, died yesterday in Milan. He was 82 and lived in Milan. He had been suffering from heart problems, said Tony Russo, a former manager. The enthusiasm for Mr. Corelli among the rank and file of opera fans was not always shared by connoisseurs and critics. A largely self-taught singer who came to music late and considered voice teachers "dangerous people" and a "plague to singers," Mr. Corelli was faulted by some...

WE are a city of heroes. The rest of the country may clamor for po' boys and hoagies, grinders, subs, wedges or torpedoes, but New York knows what really constitutes a gigantic sandwich, and what raises the hero above those pretenders; what makes it gastronomic royalty. Let there be no misunderstanding by those who have never ventured to New York, or by those who have come lately, or by those who diet. The hero is a sandwich of cured Italian meats. These are layered into a forearm's length of fresh crusty bread, often with a few slices of Italian cheese...

Only hours after the news broke, Katie Couric thought Rush Limbaugh's drug problem was funny. So funny as a matter of fact, that she made up a story about sitting next to him on the plane and asking for an aspirin - you get the rest. She told it with a baby-girl hair flip. It wasn't funny. During the Democrat debate last week, John Kerry thought Rush's pain was funny and took a shot. That wasn't funny either. For hard-pressed liberals, merchandising Rush Limbaugh's admitted pill addiction will be an interesting test of individual sensitivity and a telling reality check...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 — President Bush said again today that he recognized Israel's right to defend itself, and he pointedly declined to criticize it for the retaliatory strikes into Syria after a deadly suicide bombing. Mr. Bush said he told Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel on Sunday, "like I have consistently done, that Israel's got a right to defend herself; that Israel must not feel constrained in terms of defending the homeland." "However," the president said, "I said that it's very important that any action that Israel take should avoid escalation and creating higher tensions." Mr. Bush has said...