Free Republic

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A torrential downpour that struck Charlotte Saturday afternoon damaged the Mount Rushmore-style sand sculpture bust of President Obama — an ominous beginning to what many fear is a plagued convention. Workers were trying Saturday afternoon to reform the base of the sculpture, built from sand brought in from Myrtle Beach, S.C., pounding and smoothing out the sand that had washed off the facade.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A torrential downpour that struck Charlotte Saturday afternoon damaged the Mount Rushmore-style sand sculpture bust of President Obama — an ominous beginning to what many fear is a plagued convention. Workers were trying Saturday afternoon to reform the base of the sculpture, built from sand brought in from Myrtle Beach, S.C., pounding and smoothing out the sand that had washed off the facade. Democrats' choice of Charlotte has drawn criticism from unions who don't like North Carolina's labor laws, and the state seems to be tilting away from Democrats politically. Read more: Rains wash away Mount Obama...

Forget the marble pillars, this time there will be a giant 16-foot sculpture of Obama made out of 15.5 tons of sand at the Democratic National Convention. Building a giant sand sculpture of a living leader might be considered a bit tacky with its worshipful implications, but building one during a hurricane in South Carolina is in particularly bad taste. But if nothing else, at least Obama has found one “Shovel Ready Project”. And this isn’t even the creepiest giant Obama sand sculpture ever made. The winner of that particular competition is still Sudarsan Pattnaik with this nightmare made...

Scott Ritter, formerly the top United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, has long argued that claims that Saddam Hussein possessed biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programmes were massively exaggerated. His public campaign against the US-led invasion of Iraq made him a hated figure of the American right, which still demonises him as an apologist for the ousted Baghdad regime. Now, at the very moment when the absence of weapons of mass destruction in post-Saddam Iraq should make Mr Ritter feel vindicated, he faces new questions about his relationship with Baghdad after he quit his UN job in 1998. Mr Ritter...

Iraq's intelligence services bought gold jewellery that they planned to give to the wife and daughter of Scott Ritter, the controversial former weapons inspector, as part of a clandestine project to encourage him to work closely with Saddam Hussein's regime, according to documents discovered by The Telegraph in Baghdad. According to the documents, which were found in the bombed headquarters of Iraq's intelligence services, the cost of the presents was approved at the highest level in an attempt to develop "strong relations with them [Mr Ritter's family] that affect positively on our relations with him". The documents say that the...