Free Republic

SONGYUAN, China -- Qiao Yubo, who is pregnant with at least five babies, walks with her husband, right, in Songyuan, in China's northeast Jilin province. Qiao, who is 1.67-meters tall, has a waistline measurement of 1.75 meters, five months into her pregnancy. Qiao's excessive bulk is causing difficulties in getting around, with taxi drivers too afraid to take her in their cars. Her clothing is all custom-made and she eats up to seven meals a day. (06/16/06 AP photo)

Racism is partly to blame for the deadly aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said, calling President Bush's response to the disaster "incompetent." "Today, as the President comes to Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi for his ceremonial trip to look at the victims of the devastation, he would do well to have a plan more significant than a ceremonial tour," Jackson said Friday. "His whole response is unacceptable." Bush has acknowledged that the federal response has not been acceptable, but promised that the government would get supplies to survivors and crack down on violence in New Orleans. Jackson questioned...

Was that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi fell for it. Bush's inaugural -- and the massive threat these elections pose to his cause -- taunted him out into the opening to declare forthrightly which side he is on. Zarqawi's vision is a Middle Eastern version of what Orwell described a boot stamping on a human face forever. Zarqawi has proudly declared that he doesn't believe individual Muslim's or Arabs or Iraqis should be able to live by any idea, principle or aspiration other than the one prescribed in Zarqawi's own pinched and bitter reading of the Koran. He can still use the...