Free Republic

NEW YORK -- This year's Fourth of July race to stuff your face with hot dogs has a new women-only pigout. "Serena Williams didn't have to beat Roger Federer to win the Wimbledon title, and we don't think Sonya Thomas should have to beat Joey Chestnut," said master of ceremonies George Shea. Thomas, known as The Black Widow of competitive eating, set a women's world record July 4, 2009, by stuffing 41 hot dogs into her 105-pound frame in 10 minutes. Thomas and nine other women will compete Monday on Coney Island just before the men's stomach-churning Nathan's Famous hot...

Political Excess: Behind Nancy Pelosi's four days of revelry celebrating her speakership is a carefully crafted purpose. But if her background is any indication, all that public relations may end up backfiring. On one day, a street will be named after her in Little Italy in Baltimore, where her father served as mayor. On another, Tony Bennett will serenade her at an Italian Embassy banquet with "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." The Italian motif is apt, because the bacchanalia taking up most of next week in Washington will be a lot like the Roman Empire's legions marching into...

Two Western Pennsylvania men will belly up to the World Series of eating today. They will try to become the best of the wurst in the dog-eat-dog world of competitive eating, wolfing down wieners at Coney Island in Nathan's Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest. Brian Subich, of Johnstown, Cambria County, and Chip Simpson, 24, of Harrisville, Butler County, are two of 16 contestants who qualified to compete in the contest that's been won the past five years by a 5-foot-7, 150-pound Japanese man, Takeru Kobayashi. He once put down 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes. The contest, which has...