Free Republic

Mitt Romney appeared strangely agitated in his interview with Fox News host Bret Baier on Tuesday. Romney had won praise earlier in the campaign for his calmness. But the calmness has given way under campaign pressures to open irritation. He testily brushed off Baier's blameless questions as "unusual." Baier isn't exactly Martin Bashir, yet Romney felt the need to treat him like a particularly hostile questioner. Romney hasn't been this agitated since he grabbed at Rick Perry's shoulder. Behaving like a thin-skinned pol didn't lend any credence to Romney's claim during the interview that he is the refreshing outsider in...

A beautiful Brazilian soap star has the lead role in her own daytime drama, which casts George Soros, the billionaire financier of lefty causes, as a heavy who not only broke her heart, but also reneged on a promise to give her an Upper East Side apartment worth $1.9 million. The drama will be staged in Manhattan Supreme Court, where 28-year-old Adriana Ferreyr yesterday filed a blockbuster $50 million suit charging, among other things, that the frisky octogenarian slapped her around while they were in bed discussing his real-estate betrayal. The sultry actress and the mogul, who's worth some $14.5...

For the first time in history more than half the world’s population is living in towns and cities. We passed this milestone in 2008 and by 2040 two in three people are expected to live in urban environments. Urbanisation presents us with a wealth of new opportunities and huge challenges. It has the potential to further economic development and innovation, but also threatens to exacerbate key global problems, including resource depletion, climate change, and inequality. Megacities on the move sets out to find solutions to one of the biggest challenges – how billions of city-dwellers can access what they need...

In the fall of 2008, McCain left the campaign trail in a near panic to return to Washington where he voted in favor of a bailout despite significant Republican opposition and concerns expressed at the time. Below is a list of seven of the top 20 (including the top five) donors to John McCain from 2003-2008 as compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. It reads like a who’s who of companies that received bailout cash. In fact, while these companies raised John McCain over $1.7 million, they were bailed out to the tune of some $135 billion.

Barack Obama is still struggling to kick smoking, according to his first medical examination since becoming president. Obama is sensitive about his cigarette habit and tetchy with reporters who raise it. But after his 90-minute medical at the Navy hospital outside Washington yesterday morning, his doctors confirmed he had not yet managed to conquer the habit and suggested he "continue smoking cessation efforts". The doctors also recommended "moderation of alcohol intake".

The list of veteran’s bills that McCain has voted against is staggering. He has one of the worst anti-veteran voting records in Congress going back to 1994. “No Surrender!” Unless you’re the one surrendering them right Johnny? Read The Entire Article http://sonoranweeklyreview.com/?p=2531

President Obama announced tougher energy efficiency requirements for certain types of fluorescent and incandescent lighting on Monday, the latest step in the administration’s push to cut the country’s energy use. The new rule , scheduled to take effect in 2012, will cut the amount of electricity used by affected lamps by 15 to 25 percent and save $1 billion to $4 billion a year for consumers, the White House said. “Now I know light bulbs may not seem sexy,” Mr. Obama said, “but this simple action holds enormous promise because 7 percent of all the energy consumed in America is...

Louis Freeh would go on to become director of the FBI in the1990s, but back then he ran the organized crime unit under Giuliani. He said, "Rudy's security was a serious issue. "We would sit down with him and sort of give him a security plan or advise him that he ought to have a bodyguard when he traveled around," said Freeh. "He would listen to us as he always did very carefully and say, 'I don't want that. Our job here is to be U.S. attorneys and prosecutors and if we are walking around with bodyguards we are sending...

Does Sen. Hillary Clinton, the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, endorse efforts to form a world government? Video footage recently has surfaced that could force her to either affirm or distance herself from sentiments she expressed in 1999 during a ceremony in which former CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite accepted the Norman Cousins Global Governance Award from the World Federalist Association. In his acceptance speech, Cronkite embraced the idea that the U.S. would be subsumed into a regional or world government. His views were seconded by Clinton in a closed-circuit television link-up.

'Helicopter parents' still hover even as grads pound pavement By Eleanor Yang Su STAFF WRITER July 5, 2007 Rowena Paz's parents did everything they could to help her land a good job after college. They edited her résumé, suggesting experience she should play up or cut out. Her mother called regularly to remind Paz, 21, to get enough sleep before interviews. Her father coached her with interview questions and drove her to three job interviews in Los Angeles, because “driving in Los Angeles is tension-filled.” It came naturally for Paz's parents, who for years shuttled her to music and karate...

Presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani has been making fund-raising appearances in his home turf, New York City, but he’s been hounded by reporters and protesters questioning him about the 9/11 attacks. A radical group in the Bronx accused him of being one of the "criminals of 9/11,” according to local radio station 1010 WINS. One young woman who claimed she was a relative of a 9/11 victim confronted the Republican candidate outside a Bronx restaurant and asked him why he told [former ABC news anchor] Peter Jennings the towers would fall that day, but allowed the rescue efforts of firefighters and...

Spiraling Out of Control By Susan Coll Sunday, March 4, 2007; Page B01 A recent e-mail from Amazon.com made my heart start racing. My order had been shipped, it said, and "Living Abroad in Costa Rica" would arrive any day. I had never heard of this book. Had someone hacked into my computer? I thought of identity theft, credit card fraud -- and then of my 17-year-old son, who was deep into high school senioritis. He confessed to placing the order, defensively reminding me that I allow him to buy books with impunity as part of a mostly unsuccessful campaign...

Black tape has been put on the desks of civil servants to show them where to put their pens as part of a £7m Government 'efficiency' drive. It is the latest idea from consultants being paid to come up with so-called innovative ideas to improve the working environment of public sector staff. The tape is also used to mark out exactly where the computer keyboard should be placed, as well telephones. Previous novel thinking by the consultants included a desk ban on family photographs - along with any 'inactive fruit'. Staff representatives described the idea, which is being piloted by...

The story of Lucy Gao - like that of London lawyer Claire Swire and New York finance analyst Mary B Callahan - is a cautionary tale for hi-tech times. Two weeks ago Ms Gao, an Oxford University engineering graduate and an intern at Citigroup bank in London, emailed instructions to about 40 friends who were due to attend her 21st birthday party at the Ritz Hotel that Friday night. One guest sent the message to a colleague. It raced around Citigroup in hours. Within days it had circled the globe. "I can't contain myself," said one forwarder. "I've just been...

Writing the history of our time in song. http://monya1.tripod.com/midis2.html MIDI - TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR (click on Margie Harrell, then the song) Tinkle, tinkle, little star...viewers wonder where you are Maybe in stall number one...this is really getting fun Tinkle, tinkle, little star...viewers wonder where you are Kyra was there to hear our leader speak Her sister-in-law we learn's a real controlling freak Then there was a television moment quite profound I hope everybody got to hear the zipper sound Come on, put it on your website, CNN We are waiting anxiously to hear the clip again Tinkle, tinkle, little...

NEW YORK - Kyra Phillips, anchor of CNN's "Live From...," unwittingly upstaged President Bush's speech in New Orleans with on-the-air analysis of her husband and the marriage of her brother — all live from a CNN ladies room. Unaware that her wireless microphone was "live" during her break, Phillips could be heard overriding Bush's prepared address Tuesday as he was seen marking the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The Atlanta-based Phillips, in conversation with an unidentified woman in an echoey room, dismissed most men with a vulgar term, but called herself "very lucky in that regard. My husband is handsome...

Cnn was covering Bush speech and their hosts was on the air. Did anyone else hear them.

Repulsive "Wifely Expectations" pact emerges in Iowa kidnap case FEBRUARY 17--This country, as you know, is filled with the deranged. And then there's Travis Frey, a 33-year-old Iowa man who is facing charges that he tried to kidnap his own wife (not to mention a separate child pornography rap). Frey, prosecutors contend, apparently is a rather demanding guy. In fact, he actually drew up a bizarre four-page marriage document--a "Contract of Wifely Expectations"--that sought to establish guidelines for his spouse in terms of hygiene, clothing, and sexual activities. In return for fulfilling certain requirements, Frey (pictured right) offered "Good Behavior...

Will Katie Holmes be a stay-at-home mom? The buzz is that Tom Cruise wants his wife-to-be to focus on being a wife and a mother — not on her career. He also reportedly wants her to avoid the spotlight for a while. “I’ve got Katie tucked away, so no one will get to us until my child is born — and until I want them to,” Cruise recently told “a friend” according to the new issue of Life & Style Weekly.

Political pundits have long discounted former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's presidential prospects, claiming that his particular brand of tough-talking, socially moderate conservatism would never play south of the Mason-Dixon Line. But Rudy has never been one to listen to conventional wisdom, and lately at least, he has been turning up the heat in southern conservative political circles. In just the last week, he endorsed Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry for re-election and met with Evangelicals in Florida. Most impressively, he actually outpaced U.S. Senator John McCain in a just-released Georgia poll, garnering the support of 28 percent of...