Free Republic

JANUARY 25--South Carolina cops are attempting to identify the participants in a wild brawl early Saturday at an International House of Pancakes, video of which has gone viral online. As seen in the below clip--which includes some cursing--the female combatants are seen punching and wrestling with each other as tables are toppled. At one point, a woman picks up a coffee pot and strikes another woman in the head while she is being pinned to a table. Later, a man is seen swinging a cane at the woman who was struck with the coffee pot. The woman, adopting a lion...

She had many codenames - Diane, Camille, Marie, Philomene - but to the Gestapo she was simply the Limping Lady because of her wooden leg. Gestapo chief Hermann Göring put out Wanted posters offering a reward for the capture of the woman he viewed as the most dangerous spy in war-torn France. But Virginia Hall ignored the Nazi secret police, and, working for Winston Churchill's SOE, the Special Operations Executive, forerunner of MI6, she slipped back and forth between London and France, wreaking havoc behind enemy lines. When he set up the SOE, Churchill said he wanted it "to set...

Dear Everybody, Yesterday was a terrible day for Israel. Losing 12 soldiers to one katyusha attack is a national tragedy for this country. For the U.S., our loss of 2,500+ soldiers is hardly noted except as a statistic. It’s not even allowable to photograph the coffins coming home. Our soldiers die almost anonymously. The average American didn’t know any of the dead, and Americans’ lives are not essentially changed by the Iraq war. But Israel is more like one big neighborhood than a country. School kids go all through school together (no constant moving around like in the U.S.), and...

Received 8/1/06 Dear Everyone, Sixty rockets hit within one hour this morning, about 300 since dawn, and it’s only lunchtime. No deaths, but a lot of casualties. For every person who is physically injured, many more suffer shock and are taken to the hospital for treatment. Mental health services are also being made as available as possible by the Israeli government. War is very noisy. That’s probably the worst part of the war for people huddled in bomb shelters. Walking to work today, I could hear the boom, boom, booming of rockets to the north. Spin. I subscribe to Time...

Dear Everyone, This is the most recent free article from the Strategic Forecasting Web site (“stratfor”) and the last that I’ll send. You can go to the site and sign up for the free emails with analyses. Another good Web site is Debka Files. Just enter “debka”. The network news actually gives very little news. This is war, and for security reasons more information is withheld than given out. But if you study the material on stratfor and debka, you can learn a lot more about what is going on. Sunday was a nine-siren day, the most so far. I...

Dear Everyone, You know the day has begun when the siren sounds at 5:30 a.m. Not so bad. Gives me even more time for morning prayer and reflection, which is vital for starting the day. The process of adjusting to war is very interesting. I find that sirens are now sort of “normal”, and I mostly ignore them. At work I just keep on working. On the street I look for a stairwell to duck into for a few minutes. But there is also a noticeable lack of focus during the day as I keep checking the news sources I...

Dear Everyone, The enclosed is from Strategic Forecast (“Stratfor” on Google). It gives incredible insights into what is going on from a solely strategic viewpoint. No politics. I recommend running off hard copies and studying them. These reports end with 16 July, so you will have to search the Web site to find the ones from 17 July on. Yesterday was another five-alarm day, but nothing dropped on Haifa. Today no sirens, but we heard rockets hit, so they must have hit close by. But no warning siren. Figure that. Haaretz is your best online option for finding out what...

LONDON (Reuters) - Former Beatle Paul McCartney is to broadcast live into space from a U.S. concert to two astronauts circling the globe. He will play "Good Day Sunshine" and one of his latest songs, "English Tea," to NASA astronaut Bill McArthur and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev who are on an international space station 220 miles above the earth. McCartney, who will be singing into space Saturday from Anaheim, California via NASA television, got the idea when he discovered that the crew of the spaceship Discovery were treated to a burst of "Good Day Sunshine" in August as a wake-up...

A British woman born without arms or legs is suing Air France, claiming she was told she could not fly because she has no limbs. Adele Price, 42, claims an Air France employee in Manchester told her "one head, one bottom and a torso cannot possibly fly on its own". Ms Price, from Mansfield, Notts, is suing the airline in a New York court and is seeking unspecified damages. Air France was not available for comment on Saturday morning. Ms Price was born without limbs because her mother took the drug thalidomide during pregnancy. She said in her legal action...