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Welcome Hannity fans! Click here for today's show threadsKeep up the good work Sean! (Hannity)Hannity bashes Free Republic Sean Hannity recently expressed on the air that something like 80% of the FReepers now hate him. I sincerely doubt that is correct. I think he was fed some misinformation. What say you?

WASHINGTON - Karl Rove, President Bush (news - web sites)'s top political strategist, on Thursday pronounced conservatism the "dominant political creed in America" and coached fellow conservatives on how to support his boss. "The next time one of your smarty-pants liberal friends says to you, `Well, he didn't have a mandate,' you tell him of this delicious fact: This president got a higher percentage of the vote than any Democratic candidate for president since 1964," Rove said. In 2004, Bush was re-elected with about 51 percent of the vote. In 1976, Jimmy Carter received just over 50 percent and in...

When CNET News.com asked Bill Gates about software patents, he shifted the subject to "intellectual property," blurring the issue with various other laws. Then he said anyone who won't give blanket support to all these laws is a communist. Since I'm not a communist but I have criticized software patents, I got to thinking this might be aimed at me. When someone uses the term "intellectual property," typically he's either confused himself, or trying to confuse you. The term is used to lump together copyright law, patent law and various other laws, whose requirements and effects are entirely different. Why...

SEOUL -- North Korea's declaration that it possesses nuclear weapons has raised key questions: Does the isolated Communist country really have atomic arms? Or was last Thursday's statement merely an attempt at blackmail to win concessions from the international community? Why did Pyongyang drop its longstanding strategy of maintaining ambiguity to publicly announce its nuclear weapons capability? Officials in Seoul remain doubtful that North Korea truly has an atomic bomb, saying last week's declaration does not necessarily mean Pyongyang has tested a nuclear weapons system that can be deployed. "It is premature to conclude North Korea possesses nuclear weapons," a...

We've had a lot of new folks join up recently. Welcome aboard, this thread is a gentle reminder of some basic posting guidelines. (And for some of you old timers as well) Please read the follow, and ask any questions. We will all try to help you out. SEARCH If it's a breaking news topic, check breaking news first, it's probably already posted. To avoid duplicate posts, please search before posting. Use the published article title to prevent duplicates. The best method to search is to pick a key word or two from the title. If the article you are...

WASHINGTON — A key lawmaker participating in the congressional probe of the U.N. Oil-for-Food (search) scandal says he's fed up with what he described as the lack of cooperation coming from the United Nations (search). Rep. Joe Barton, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote to Mark Malloch Brown (search), chief of staff to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan (search), on Tuesday, disputing recent comments Brown made indicating that the international organization is cooperating with congressional investigators on getting to the bottom of the Oil-for-Food controversy. "In light of the U.N.'s repeated refusals to provide this committee...

Liberals continue to hang onto the fantasy that the UN can solve all the problems of the world—if only that demon-spawn G.W. Bush would stop being so stubborn! Never mind the evidence of history, which reveals that something far less than universal goodness can be expected from such a “world body.” The UN is a failed experiment, but the “progressives,” refusing to look back even to history, believe in the UN and, consequently, in the International Criminal Court (ICC), with religious fanaticism. One dare not ignore the opinion of the whole world! is their mantra. Listen to what she has...

NEW YORK - A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the CIA (news - web sites) to comply with the Freedom of Information Act and turn over to watchdog groups records concerning the treatment of prisoners in Iraq (news - web sites). "Congress has set the laws, and it is the duty of executive agencies to comply with them," U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein wrote. It was the second time in six months that the judge suggested the government was impeding the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites)'s quest to monitor government actions in the war on terrorism....

HIGHLAND FALLS, N.Y. - A 7-year-old girl was found stabbed to death at a parochial school Thursday, and the son of a former village police chief is among those being questioned. The girl's body was discovered about 75 minutes after classes started Thursday morning at Sacred Heart of Jesus School, police Chief Peter Miller said. It was not immediately clear when or where the child was killed. Parents rushed to pick up their children after learning of the slaying. Police, who did not identify the slain student, said they were questioning several people in the death, including Chris Rhodes, 27,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A closely divided U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday lifted a stay of execution for Connecticut death row inmate Michael Ross in a move that could clear the way for New England's first execution in 45 years. Ross, a convicted serial murderer who has admitted killing eight women in the 1980s, says he wants to waive his appeals and die. But a U.S. appeals court on Tuesday upheld a stay of execution and sent the case back to a federal judge to decide whether a public defender may intervene on his behalf. Connecticut prosecutors asked that the stay...

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea (news - web sites) appears to have bought a complete nuclear weapon from either Pakistan or a former Soviet Union state, a South Korean newspaper said on Thursday quoting a source in Washington. Seoul Shinmun quoted the source as saying the United States was checking the intelligence. The purchase was apparently intended to avoid nuclear weapons testing that could be detected from the outside, the source was quoted as saying. North Korea is believed to have one or two nuclear weapons and possibly more than eight. U.S. Congressman Curt Weldon said after a visit to...

This being rebroadcast right now on PBS. Consider, if you will, the dead caused by abortion in the US as well.

Denmark's Supreme Court has ruled that a supermarket chain had the right to fire a young Muslim woman for wearing an Islamic headscarf to work. The woman, who worked as a cashier in the supermarket, claimed damages for discrimination and wrongful dismissal. But the court said Dansk Supermarked chain was allowed to fire the woman who had signed a contract which banned headgear in front of customers. Twenty-seven-year-old Najla Ainouz was dismissed from her post in 2001. A supermarket spokesman said the company wanted the appearance of its employees to be in line with its political and religious neutrality. The...

RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - Militants loyal to al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi beheaded an Iraqi soldier in a rebel stronghold in broad daylight on Friday and left a note warning other Iraqi troops to quit, witnesses said. They said nine men pulled up in two cars to the center of Ramadi, dragged the soldier out of one of the vehicles and cut off his head as residents looked on. They left the body, dressed in army fatigues, in the street with the severed head placed on the torso. A note was found at the scene purporting to be from...

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An Egyptian family in New Jersey --- mother, father, and both daughters, including an eight year old girl --- were found in their home last Friday, their bodies bound and their throats cut. Why? Because the father criticized Islam: Hossam Armanious, his wife Amal Garas and their daughters, Monica (8) and Sylvia (15) were found murdered in their New Jersey home. The reason this family was so brutally murdered appears to be that they were outspoken critics of Islam. The family was bound and tortured, before their throats were slit in accord with the instructions for executing nonbelievers, as detailed...

BEIJING – After the death of former Chinese Communist Party Secretary Zhao Ziyang, victims in the Tiananmen Square Massacre were immediately put under surveillance and house arrest. They are forbidden from visiting Zhao Ziyang’s former residence to show mourning. According to sources from Beijing, government approval is needed to visit Zhao’s former residence. Qi Zhiyong, a worker disabled from police shooting during the 1989 Massacre, called on the Chinese authorities yesterday to admit their mistake and to restore Zhao Ziyang’s reputation. He was immediately put under house arrest by the authorities and forbidden from leaving his house. Qi said that...

MONTPELLIER, France (AFP) - French police arrested four men in southern France after a search of their vehicle revealed a statue of Father Christmas made of pure cocaine. Investigators stopped the car, which had travelled from the Spanish city of Barcelona, at a motorway toll station at Saint-Jean-de-Vedas near Montpellier. Inside they found four Christmas crowns and a statue of Father Christmas on a base. Subsequent examinations showed all were made entirely of aggregate cocaine, an extremely rare method of disguising the drug, according to police. The cocaine, which weighed about 5.5 kilos (12 pounds), could be reconstituted thanks to...

KIEV, Ukraine - Ukraine's Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that presidential election results can be published before it completes hearing an appeal by the losing candidate, paving the way for the inauguration of Western-leaning reformer Viktor Yushchenko. The court, responding to a motion by Yushchenko's camp, said the results of his victory over former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych could be published Wednesday. Publication of the results in the two official government newspapers is a precondition for the inauguration. Yushchenko won a Dec. 26 runoff election, a rerun of Nov. 21 balloting in which Yanukovych's victory was annulled by the court because...